


for keeps

by rensshi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentioned NCT Ensemble, Mentioned PRISTIN Ensemble, Slow Burn, kind of a
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-07-27 13:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16220456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rensshi/pseuds/rensshi
Summary: Wonwoo observes. Junhui listens.





	1. not now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo finds out maybe fate doesn't like him.

The first thing Wonwoo feels when he wakes up is the searing headache. Falling asleep in Mingyu’s van -- the airconditioning off and the windows all open to let in the humid summer air that was more heat than anything else, was a mistake. Then he feels the moisture soaked into the back of his thin t-shirt dabbed with sweat spots, gross and sticky.

When he sits up straighter in the seat, Junhui’s head pops up next to him at one of the windows. He’s sucking on one of the melon popsicles Seokmin had bought too many of earlier for this beach outing.

“Well. You've looked better. Ice cream?” Junhui asks, squinting in the sunlight overhead. He had forgotten his sunglasses.  
  
Wonwoo ignores his question, sleep still heavy in his mouth and the summer heat has permeated his brain. He opens the door, Junhui helps slide it aside to let Wonwoo stagger out. Junhui dutifully slides the windows all closed.

From where the van is parked near the concrete steps leading down to the beach, Wonwoo has a near perfect view of the ocean, and of Mingyu, Seokmin and Soonyoung playing a two-on-one frisbee game in the sand. There’s the commotion of Junhui rummaging through the cooler, looking for a coke among the Sprite and Fanta cans.

“It’s too fucking hot,” Wonwoo says yawning and stretching out the crick in his arms and neck.

“Uh huh,” Junhui says absently. He glances at Wonwoo, and smiles. “Then let’s go swim.”  
  
Wonwoo scoffs; he didn’t really like the water and never did. But every year he scoffs, and every year he brings an extra shirt and swim trunks anyway, because he knows he’ll end up wading into the water at some point, skirting the shoreline, sometimes just wading in enough to get himself knee deep.

Junhui knows it too. Wonwoo flinches when Junhui grabs his elbow suddenly, fingers ice cold from the two coke cans he had extracted earlier for them. He holds the can given to him to his cheek, relief from the sweltering summer heat. The warmth of Junhui’s body next to him radiates, the hand gripping his elbow no longer cold as they walk down to the beach but it’s not unwelcome. Just Junhui being Junhui.

The part of the beach they drove to this time round was smaller, a bit quieter. A few children in their brightly colored bucket hats run past them and the seagulls squawk high above.

The frisbee comes flying out of nowhere, supposedly aimed at them from how Soonyoung shouts _get over here and let’s start a real game bitches_ \-- but it misses by a long shot.

“I won!” Mingyu cackles obnoxiously. “Hyung owes me drinks later.”

“You know,” Soonyoung says pouting, jogging back to them with the frisbee, the ridiculously tacky too big puka shell necklace bouncing because it didn’t rest snug against his collarbones. “We don’t _have_ to go to Jihoon’s gig later.”

“Why not?” Seokmin says, eyes bugging out a little. _His_ shell necklace though, fit him properly. Wonwoo still strongly feels that they may as well have also gotten those matching faded aloha shirts at the tiny shop meant for tourists they had stopped by earlier, but he won’t say anything anymore about that.

“Why _not_ not.”

“Soonyoung, come on, we missed the last two gigs. I think we should show up, it’s the least we could do,” Seokmin says, rubbing his nose. There’s going to be a sunburnt strip of skin there the next day.  
  
“No, it’s the least _you_ can do because you’re the only one who feels like you owe him for helping you ace that one class last semester,” Wonwoo points out, narrowing his eyes when Seokmin smiles at him shamelessly in response.  
  
“And helped you land a date with Jung fucking Jaehyun,” Soonyoung adds, pushing the frisbee into Seokmin’s chest forcefully while he laughs weakly. “Which, okay hah, now I feel bad, because I would so totally go to a gig if Jihoon did all that for me, despite shit.”

Jung Jaehyun had broken up with Seokmin mid-semester after a short-lived relationship of almost six months. To which Seokmin had dealt with surprisingly well after moping about it for a record of one month, because he had declared during a second round of tequila shots that deep down in the fragile workings of his big heart, he had apparently and _quite honestly seen it coming but, is all good y’know ‘cause it was damn worth it._

“Exactly! And also I sort of promised him I’d show up. Look, you know what, it’s fine, let’s forget about the bet,” Seokmin tries.

Mingyu deflates a little but it’s more out of guilt now, as he glances between Soonyoung and Seokmin. Soonyoung had recently blown off most of the money he got from his part-time job at the hobbyist store near their campus back in town. Spent it on another deck of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and a Bakugou character figurine. But still, Soonyoung was stubborn enough to hold on to his word, buff out his chest and prove it, in some shape or form.

“Then I’ll buy _Mingyu_ all his drinks then later,” he huffs, jutting out his chin at Mingyu’s direction. “Played against you, s’only fair.”

So that finalizes how they’ll end the night -- most likely a little bit drunk with the exception of Wonwoo or Junhui, whoever of the two taking on the role of default-designated driver.

Wonwoo is sitting on the mound of sand of what used to be the lousy half-hearted attempt of a sandcastle that Seokmin and Mingyu had built. It's hot but the sea breeze makes up for it. Pink streaks of clouds overhead softens into the color of dusk as the sun sets.

He’s alone; Mingyu and Soonyoung had gone back to the van to clean up their trash and stow away the cooler, while Seokmin and Junhui were in the water. Wonwoo hasn’t gone in the water yet today but he contemplates it. Sees Seokmin and Junhui wave at him from here, an invitation to join them. Junhui moves a little too much in the water sometimes, gets random bursts of aggressiveness when he tackles them one by one playfully. He never does it to Wonwoo though, and he’s immensely grateful for it. If he squints hard, eyesight bad enough without his glasses, he can see Junhui grinning, and he feels warm all over.

Wonwoo allows himself this warmth, allows himself to feel this -- whatever semblance of time he still had left when he lets himself breathe and be still like this. Their yearly beach outings were therapeutic in a way, and Wonwoo acts like he doesn’t want to but he kind of knows why he ends up swimming every time even if he doesn’t really enjoy the ocean water.

He gets up as Seokmin shuffles towards him in the sand, wet shirt clinging to his body.

“You finally going in, hyung?” Seokmin smiles at him. “The water’s nice. Tide’s a bit low though so be careful of rocks and stuff.”

As Wonwoo walks deeper into the water, feet stepping gingerly over pebbles and soft tufts of seaweed, Junhui swims towards him. They meet where the water is level at their waists and Junhui is still grinning. It makes Wonwoo laugh.

He thinks it’s funny, how he had figured he preferred Junhui’s smile as opposed to smiles like, say Seokmin’s. Seokmin’s smile came quick and easy, bright and blinding like morning sunlight -- a textbook example of the sunshine metaphor used by anyone and everyone who knew Seokmin well enough. It was the kind of smile that put everyone at ease, and could get them to smile back at him just because. Junhui’s smile didn’t have that kind of immediate effect on everyone, but it makes Wonwoo grin back anyway.

“I’m excited,” Junhui chirps at him, sharp wet locks of his bangs falling into his eyes.  
  
“You’re always excited.”  
  
“Dude, I’m just-- excited for Jihoon’s gig later. Minghao said he’d be there this time too.”  
  
Wonwoo lets his hands float, palm palms facing upward. He absently plays with the water, feeling the way it seeps between his fingers whenever he cups them. He hears his mother’s voice, soothing and low -- a distant memory of her putting a terrapin into his cupped little palms when he was about eight, trying tearfully to hold water in his hands because he’d thought the tiny creature would suffer instantly without it.

“Hey.” He looks up at Junhui. “Will your mom come to see you when you graduate?”

“She might.” Junhui’s shoulder bumps Wonwoo’s, the pressure barely felt underwater when they’re not standing at their full height.

“It’ll be nice if she could.”

“So you’ve said,” Junhui laughs softly. It’s easy being quiet with Junhui.

“Wonwoo.”

Junhui looks really good in this light. The sun’s dipped lower in the sky and washing over everything in soft muted orange yellow and pink. It suits him -- honey and gold skin that matches the warmth that Wonwoo wants to keep in a pocket. Junhui bites his bottom lip in thought.

“What?” Wonwoo flicks a small spray of saltwater at Junhui, who splashes at him back in reflex and laughs a bit. He doesn’t hold eye contact with Junhui and it’s a thing they do -- look away, at anything else, when the other struggles to find words. Junhui figured out that it was easier for Wonwoo to connect the scattered trail of thoughts he has when he wasn’t looking directly at him. It worked on Junhui too, sometimes.

“Nothing.” He flashes Wonwoo a toothy grin, so he settles for splashing Junhui in the face.

 

\----------------------

 

The bar that Jihoon’s gig is at is pretty nice -- comfortable warm purple and blue mood lighting and plush couches near the tiny low stage, a nice long bar area and, most importantly, to Junhui and Mingyu, a good menu. Wonwoo now understands why Mingyu had firmly insisted they go back to Seokmin’s and clean themselves up nicely after the beach.

“Right?” Mingyu agrees when Wonwoo voices the comparison to the rustic bars that feel too claustrophobic when packed, nearer to their campus that smelled like cheap beer and cigarettes outside. “I heard Jihoon-hyung is really careful about where he plans his shindigs. I mean, like yeah he’s gotta be picky now about where he plays and what kind of audience he might draw in.”

“I heard he’s been sending his demos to production houses already,” Soonyoung says, eyeing the bar area from where they’re seated at a table farther from the stage. The girl who was singing at the moment, her voice soft but crystalline (Jung Eunwoo, according to the lineup on the poster), was right before Jihoon’s set.

Wonwoo doesn’t recognize a lot of the people here, although he could tell most were students on break just killing time like they were. The neon fluorescent signage on the wall opposite them, cast light over conversation; painted the slow late nights disguised in the culture of tasteful maturity that people like Jihoon, well-off and flourishing between connections at his age, were expected to follow.  

“I’m feeling a little sweet tonight.” Soonyoung wiggles his eyebrows at them before he stands up. “Gonna see if they can make me a nice Old Fashioned.”

Junhui and Mingyu’s faces both seem to blanch at this.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Ooooh let’s get something to eat,” Mingyu says, distracted, plucking the menu out of Junhui’s hands.

Wonwoo follows Soonyoung to the bar.

“Thanks for keeping me in check babe, but maybe I’ll settle for a shot. Because Mingyu,” Soonyoung says, pinching the bridge of his nose when he remembers he had promised to get him a drink.

“I just wanted to not be there when Jung fucking Jaehyun shows up,” Wonwoo replies dryly. Jihoon had been classmates and partners once with Jaehyun in one of their classes. Jihoon’s wide network of acquaintances pretty much involved almost every music major he was ever classmates with, so naturally, Wonwoo is surprised Seokmin had even wanted to go in the first place.

“Jesus. How do you know _when_ he’s showing up? Maybe he won’t. Good things can happen,” Soonyoung says, his eyes lighting up amiably when the bartender greets him.

As if on cue, the door swings open. Soonyoung stiffens when Jaehyun enters along with two other guys -- Wonwoo doesn't remember their names very well, Mark something and Johnny? He had dyed his hair a copper tone, making him look older than how he used to look before when his hair was well, undyed, and soft-looking that Seokmin used to sigh about out loud to anyone who’d listen. Wonwoo turns back before they can make awkward eye contact with him. They were never all buddied up with Jaehyun’s friends, so it was weirder to acknowledge them now. Soonyoung gives a long-suffering sigh.

“He’s an _idiot,_ ” Soonyoung says, harsh consonants on his tongue when he’s exasperated and prickly.

“Jung? Or Seokminnie?”

“Dunno. Both.”

“Hmm. You sure you wanna let us go to the party after?”

Soonyoung almost inhales the shot and coughs. “Shit, I almost forgot we got invited,” Soonyoung gets out through teary eyes.

Jihoon comes up on stage, with a woman who introduces herself as Amy. Wonwoo shifts a little on his weight when he notices the crowd becomes quieter, and their air seems to swell with the melody Jihoon starts to play on the keyboard, testing out the notes. Jihoon’s a crowd favorite in this place too, it seems. So Soonyoung takes the opportunity to reinforce the notion when he yells _LEE JIHOON, MARRY ME_ next to Wonwoo, and the crowd giggles, younger girls cooing when Jihoon turns red.

 

\----------------------

 

Jihoon and Choi Seungcheol’s shared apartment unit was spacious enough to hold about fifteen to twenty people, Jihoon’s set maximum number of guests for get-togethers. Seokmin had said it used to be like ten or something, but Seungcheol had persuaded him otherwise. In a way, they were lucky to even be invited.

And god, there was _supposed_ to be the comfort of airconditioning but after the third shot (Wonwoo thinks it’s just the third, or second. Screw his non-existent alcohol tolerance), it’s warmer than it was when they got here and he’s starting to sweat a little under his button-up shirt. His head is already addled and fuzzy. Some R &B playlist is on repeat again.

He’s trying to make his way through people to look for the bathroom when he crashes straight into Mingyu, sharp canines all he's seeing.

“Hyung!” Mingyu exclaims, shaking Wonwoo’s bony shoulders. “Have you tasted the croquembouche in the kitchen? It’s so awesome!”

“Where’s the bathroom? And what the hell is a croquet bush?” Wonwoo says, pushing Mingyu aside.

Mingyu leans forward again. “It’s croquem _bouche_ , hyung,” he says, slowly for emphasis. “You’ll have to ask Jihoon-hyung though, I think he’s guarding it like a dog. Also, have you seen Vernon?”

Wonwoo swirls the beer in his cup, and tries to kickstart his memory. Vernon. Choi Hansol, that art major in his sophomore year. The kid who had booked Mingyu to be his model for a class. Wonwoo had walked into Mingyu’s room without knocking when Mingyu was naked and covered in chalk paint ‘for the art’.

“I think I lost him.”

“Not my problem man. Gyu, my bladder is gonna give so please, bathroom. Before I die from kidney failure.”

Mingyu pulls him towards the narrow hallway and points to the last door on the left and the master bedroom on the opposite in case it was occupied. He ends up in the other bathroom sure enough and enjoys the total relief flooding through him when he unzips his pants to go. He’s squinting at the intricate thread work of patterns on one of the face towels hanging from the rack next to the toilet when he hears a thud and a wince from the bathtub.

“What the fuck,” Wonwoo spits out, zipping up his pants.

“I saw _nothing,”_ the voice deadpans behind the shower curtain patterned with seahorses. Wonwoo’s chest tightens. He can’t believe it. Of all places, of all times, fate decides to laugh at him.

“Joshua?”

The guy in the tub pulls back the shower curtain. Something in his expression passes for a fleeting moment when he sees Wonwoo.  
  
“Hey. Wonwoo.” Joshua’s smile is wobbly and it doesn’t reach his eyes. But Wonwoo’s heart stutters anyway, and suddenly his tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth. He tastes the sour liquor when he tries to swallow. “Didn’t know you were friends with Jihoon.”

Wonwoo shifts his weight awkwardly on one foot. “I didn’t know you were either.”

“Yeah. I just met him through Seungcheol. Seungcheol’s one of my good friends.” He sits up a little straighter in the tub.

“You look…” Wonwoo wants to ask him how he’s doing. Joshua is clearly drunk, or has been and is sobering up.

“I’ve looked better?” Joshua laughs, but it comes out like a wheeze. His eyes are puffier and Wonwoo thinks they might be red if the yellow lighting wasn’t hiding it.

“Are you okay?” Truthfully, he doesn’t know if he really wants to know the answer.

Joshua leans back further, head resting against the tiled wall as he closes his eyes. His hair had gotten longer, bangs casting shadows over his eyelids. The music pulses through the silence and someone whoops excitedly through the walls. Wonwoo needs something to do so he washes his hands, does pretty well considering how he’s tipsy enough to almost knock over the toothbrush mug. He inhales the scent of apple when he rinses the soap suds away. The elephant in the bathroom grows bigger each passing second every time Joshua breathes and exhales loudly through his nose.  

“I’m not.” Joshua finally answers in an even tone. “Just upset over someone.”

Wonwoo glances at him in the mirror over the sink. His own reflection stares back at him, his mouth set in a thin line, eyes blank.

“Doesn’t sound like just someone then,” he says, drying his hands on the towel next to the sink. A split second later he’s regretting what he said.

“I--Well. Yeah,” Joshua sighs behind him. “Sorry Wonwoo. I just-- I haven’t seen you in so long. I--” He chuckles. “You look good.”

Wonwoo kind of feels like a dead fish right now, but Joshua was always generous with simple compliments here and there.

“Want me to go find Seungcheol-hyung?” Wonwoo asks, for a lack of better things to say. “Unless you wanna be alone?”

“It’s fine. Thanks, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll get going in a bit.” He makes to stand up, and groans. Wonwoo hears him curse under his breath.  
  
Something’s off, but Wonwoo doesn’t want to assume. Not when his thoughts become disjointed in a sticky beer-induced haze that he tries to blink away. He probably can’t trust himself to say anything right now.

“Alright. Um, I hope you, like work things out with--her, I--them.” He grabs the door knob harder than he means to. God, where’s Junhui? He hopes Junhui is sober enough because he wants to just lie down and melt into the ground and possibly die and Junhui is gonna help him dig his grave whether he likes it or not.

“Wait. Wonwoo.” Joshua looks at him, eyes searching and Wonwoo sees how lost he looks -- quiet confidence broken down into something rubbed raw too harsh. He hasn’t felt it in so long, but now his stomach twists violently.

“I--” Joshua starts and swallows. “I’m sorry. You were right. The whole time, you were right.”

Wonwoo stares at the hand that grips the side of the tub, knuckles white, the veins sticking out.

“About?”

Joshua says the next words so quietly that if this weren’t a bathroom, Wonwoo is sure he would have never heard it. “I was scared. I’m still too scared.”

Wonwoo tears his eyes away from him and fixes his gaze on the doorknob. It gleams golden and sharp.

“You’re drunk, hyung.” Finally, he feels the twist in his chest more painful than it’s ever been throughout this whole conversation.

“Yeah I know,” Joshua groans.

If this was a year and a half ago, Wonwoo would have helped him out of the tub, gotten him a glass of water. A little more than a year ago, Wonwoo would have laughed at him and they’d joke around about who had the shittier alcohol tolerance. They’d get french fries and dry single patty burgers after. Maybe a little more than a year ago, they’d be brave enough and hold hands a little longer under the table, their other hands dipping fries in ketchup. Wonwoo would have forgotten again to give back the soft jacket Joshua lent him even when the nights weren’t that cold.

He bites his lip, but the words tumble out and he grows cold as he hears himself say them. “Did you find something serious?”  
  
The silence within the space is deafening at this point.

“I think so. But not the way I thought I should.”

Blood rushes in his ears, and then he’s opening the bathroom door. Wonwoo doesn’t want to be affected by it. But the memory of Joshua’s words when they had ended-- whatever it was they’d been at the time, came hurling back at him. _I don’t think this is serious, what we got. I need to find someone I can treat better._ Someone who wasn’t a man. Someone who wasn’t Wonwoo. _I’m sorry._

_I don’t want to waste your time, Wonwoo._

He grits his teeth and they both look at each other for what feels like a while. Wonwoo understands he’s pissed about all this somewhat. But he’s not mad at what Joshua had said to him all those months ago. He looks so so tired, and Wonwoo feels sick.

“I’m sorry I can’t help with that,” Wonwoo murmurs. “I gotta go.”

“Yeah,” Joshua says, rubbing his eyes.

He steps out and makes for the bedroom door. Behind him Joshua’s gotten out of the tub and he’s leaning against the bathroom doorway.

“Hope you figure things out,” Wonwoo says, not looking back.

He doesn’t wait for Joshua’s response as he leaves the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

The party is still in full swing when he makes it out to the living room. He spots Junhui on the couch, looking stupidly comfortable playing a game on his phone next to a couple drunkenly making out.

Wonwoo pokes him in the cheek. “Where are the others?” He asks.

Junhui looks up, and lets his hands drop to his lap. The character on his phone screen dies and the Game Over screen flashes.

“I dunno. Oh, have you heard about the croquembouche tower in the kitchen?”

“No. Yes, Mingyu said--” He adjusts his glasses and sniffs. “Junnie.”

It registers that he completely forgot his beer cup somewhere along the way but whatever. His chest feels empty and he hears Joshua’s voice again. _You were right._ He realizes Junhui is looking at him. The soft lighting makes his eyes darker than they already are, and he looks at the shadow that falls over the bow of his lips. For some reason, Joshua’s voice gets louder in his head. _I was just scared. I’m too scared._

Junhui stands up, (the couple on the couch move to take up the space and had this been any other night, Wonwoo would probably gag at them) and grips Wonwoo’s shoulder in an attempt to steer him away to a corner. “Tired? Because I am,” Junhui says. “If I drink any more, I might actually pass out. Where were you? Being the only sober enough dude out here is no fun.”

Wonwoo groans, and rests his forehead against Junhui’s shoulder. “I feel like I could pass out. Maybe.”

“Did you reach your third drink?” Junhui makes a funny noise of concern and clucks his tongue. Wonwoo feels Junhui drape an arm around him, sturdy and prickling with heat but he lets himself sag against Junhui’s body. His eyes burn and he squeezes them shut, so tightly that it hurts.

“Can we go home?” He asks.  
  
“Okay.” He feels Junhui nod. His breath tickles Wonwoo’s hair as he speaks. “Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. i've never tasted croquembouche, sorry.  
> 2\. all wonshua here is in the past, heads up. not one for messy plots.  
> 3\. got the title from this song


	2. segments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo gets a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let it be known that i have no idea how the korean university education system works, like everything written here is really based off of (slight) research and my own experience ish of the edu system where i went to college. 
> 
> i also don't know as of now how many chapters this fic will be so this'll be wild.

“I have a theory,” Soonyoung announces, sliding into the seat opposite Wonwoo. There’s a plate of waffles unfinished, the butter melted in a sad tiny puddle on the side. Soonyoung stabs a waffle piece with a fork and stuffs it into his mouth.

“Which is?” Wonwoo asks absently, the one earphone bud still dangling from an ear feeding him an old Busker Busker song. His notebook lays open at a page where he’s crossed out so many terms that the amended anecdotes are squeezed past the page margin. The new semester started about two weeks ago, so it means easing into early morning classes, coffee as typical fuel (more like caffeine-free frappes for Wonwoo) and breakfasts at the strip of small restaurants near the university campus if they ran out of cereal or bread and jam. He’ll have to remember this time to stop by the convenience store later because Junhui might be running home late again.

“That the more condoms one buys in advance in one purchase, the less likely he is to actually use them,” Soonyoung replies.

Wonwoo puts the other earphone bud back in, thumb on his phone volume button, prepared to tune him out. “Did you gather that from personal experience?”  
  
Soonyoung glares at the way Wonwoo smirks. “Why yes, Jeon,” he says, hunching in on himself. “After last weekend of the break when my hookup bailed on me, I figured. _Anyway_ —allow me to be your self-proclaimed enabler for getting you laid — safely and responsibly.” He lifts the fork to his mouth to take another bite, but the sticky waffle bit falls into his lap when he tries to do a finger gun at Wonwoo with the other hand. “Just like, ask me or something when you want one. I tried offering one to Seokmin when he dropped by yesterday, but he bolted.”

“You know it might take a bit more time before he’d want to even think about seeing other people that way right?” Wonwoo says, turning over the page. He’d have to start fresh and rewrite his notes later. His handwriting in the mornings could be worse than Junhui’s chicken scratch hangul.

Soonyoung snorts. “Sue me. But if Seokmin can’t be an optimist about opportunities, then someone’s gotta be. Mingyu isn’t doing enough!” He adds, when Wonwoo shakes his head.

It’s harder on Seokmin because by association, sex and physical intimacy was equivalent to his first and only reference of the experience. It’s just negative association because said reference dumped him.

They leave the restaurant to walk towards campus grounds while debating over psychological fake facts spread on social media, and some of the behavioral theories that Wonwoo has memorized to a tee. Their lips start to chafe against the fall breeze. Mid-September saw rich shades of red and gold foliage, hands stuffed in sweater side pockets, and leaves crunching underneath their trainers. Wonwoo likes autumn; likes muted warm colors and the crisp wind that nips gently at his ears and fingertips. He likes the way the world around him held its breath for trees to shed, like they were encouraged to let go of the old and start again.

“Hey,” he says, bumping into Soonyoung to make way for a passing biker. “Are you going to Junhui’s show?”

“Is that the one on a Wednesday? On the...”

“On the 29th,” Wonwoo reminds him.

Soonyoung tuts. “The new term has barely started. They’re crazy huh? Crap, that’s gonna be me next year too,” he sighs.

“It’s the last term. His last term — of course the schedules are going to be crazy,” Wonwoo says, though he knows that Junhui had strategized his whole university schedule to avoid being bogged down badly by stress come senior year. But that didn’t mean Junhui never had late nights back from the studios at the theater building, and still meant the occasional all-nighter come exam season.

Beside him Soonyoung hums thoughtfully. “Last term. Your last term too.” Soonyoung, who had delayed a few of his classes just so he could focus solely on his thesis, is hoping to graduate the next year.

Wonwoo takes off his glasses and wipes at a smudge with his sleeve. He has to call back his mom sometime this week; eventually she’d bring up the topic of thesis and graduation. He wonders this time if she’d bring up Joshua. She doesn’t, not anymore for reasons. But still. There’s something about how mothers tend to remember first friends — she treats Soonyoung like something of a third son because Wonwoo had been stuck with him since the first year of high school. Going backwards, she remembered the first new friend he had made in primary school, even if Wonwoo is now sure there had been other kids he had played with before the ones his mother remembers.

So of course, she hardly ever talks about him but she remembers Joshua Hong — the junior who Wonwoo had partnered with for a project in an English language elective back when he was acclimatizing in freshman year. Joshua, whom he had thought nothing of in the context of attractive, at first. He’s suddenly reminded with an uncomfortable and dull jolt in his chest, about red puffy eyes, yellow lighting and Joshua’s voice, quiet and slightly shaky during their encounter three weeks ago on the break.

“Six months,” Wonwoo begins, scowling while accidentally making eye contact with a random stranger passing by; the poor girl’s eyes widen at what must be his sour bitch face and she ducks her head, walking past them faster. “Seokmin and Jaehyun lasted about six months. And now it’s been almost two since their breakup.” He feels Soonyoung glance at him.

“Yeeaaaah,” Soonyoung draws the word out, trying to figure out where Wonwoo is going with this. “You’re right, it will take longer for him to get over it.”

The morning sunlight above them fades as the clouds pass and the shadows on the ground soften.

“So then— I guess, say four months—of being a thing with someone you’re _not supposed_ to be with,” Wonwoo says, making half-hearted air quotations with his fingers. “Means that it would take a year and a half for you to repeat the same kind of thing, again with someone you thought you shouldn’t be with.”

Soonyoung, as straightforward as ever, doesn’t make himself go through the effort of reading between the lines of Wonwoo’s rambling. “The fuck are you on about?” He chews at the inside of one cheek, the way he does when he actually does think carefully before he speaks. “Are you talking about Joshua?”

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything, but he knows Soonyoung long enough to know Soonyoung _knows_ that Wonwoo’s silence means yes. His original trail of thought kind of loses itself and he already doesn’t feel like continuing the conversation; Wonwoo has a way of talking in random bursts about the things he finds a little harder to actually talk about, if he says anything about them at all. He’ll say one thing that would sound strange to the another person, and sometimes, they’ll jump in with their own version of what Wonwoo starts off with in an attempt to understand. Common interests and experiences are what people grasp on to. Just to keep talking sometimes for the sake of talking, things like that.

Soonyoung though, has context this time with the issue so he doesn’t steer; only eggs him on a little.

“So, word got round to you that he’s seeing someone he says he _shouldn’t_ be seeing again,” he tacks on, mimicking Wonwoo’s air quotes. "Like, another guy?"

Wonwoo hikes up his backpack slung on one shoulder and slips on the other strap to ease its weight. He’s convinced though he’ll never remember to right his posture no matter how many times Mingyu nags him about it. “Seeing, has seen. Saw him at Jihoon’s party—drunk. And really fucking sad,” he adds before Soonyoung cuts in with whatever he might go off about.

“And you wait until _now_ to tell me? Never mind,” he relents. “Is that why you and Junhui ditched early to go get ramyun?”

“Mhmm. We talked, a little,” Wonwoo admits. “I asked how he was, said he was upset over someone. Then he said he was sorry and all that.” His own voice sounds distant, and he grips on to his backpack straps as if to ground himself in place.

“Sounds like he was insensitive,” Soonyoung says but Wonwoo shakes his head.

“Nah, he wasn’t. It was me who asked. And he never said anything more.”

Soonyoung pouts, but doesn’t say anything more because despite all of it, he knows how nice Joshua really was.

“I don’t think I’m really bitter about him,” Wonwoo continues. “It’s just —I get it,” he says quietly.

“Aw, dude.”

It’s all Soonyoung says and they both know he doesn’t _quite_ _get it_ , but Wonwoo feels a small surge of appreciation for Soonyoung all the same.

They walk in silence along the pavement where it starts to slope downward as they near the main building. Soonyoung turns left to head for the theater arts center; he leaves with _pick between Die Hard 2 and Back To The Future for later, see ya_ as his goodbye and Wonwoo watches his parting figure briefly, wondering if he should drop by later in the evening to walk back home with Junhui.

 

———————————

  


Junhui had texted Wonwoo an hour before saying that he’d be out a little earlier than usual. So there’s Wonwoo waiting outside the theater arts building just a little after 6 in the evening.

Wonwoo has most of his days messily segmented into three parts; quiet mornings when he squeezes into the cramped space to brush his teeth next to Junhui in the bathroom; the day he spends outside often caught up in school work, lectures and the likes. And then the nights, where if he’s not spending it typing up research papers or gaming, he’ll be falling asleep next to Junhui on one of their twin beds when they watch old anime reruns or movies.

Tonight though, was movie night with the rest of his friends. Wonwoo can guess when they reach Mingyu and Seokmin’s place that Die Hard 2 would be overruled four votes against one in favor of watching Back To The Future.

“Are you sure—” Wonwoo starts when Junhui appears at his side, hair damp and hood of his black sweater up, “—That you don’t wanna just have my copy of _The Joy Luck Club_?” It’s a really worn down copy sitting in their dorm room, paperback sewn spine trying its best to keep the browned pages together, so technically he didn’t have much to lose if he lent it to Junhui.

Junhui pushes away the copy of the book he’s holding—stamped with the university library seal—out of sight into his backpack. He had had to double back for it because he had forgotten it again.

“It’s okay,” he says, brushing his bangs out of his eyes when Wonwoo tugs down his hood to welcome the breeze; Junhui will never dry his hair fast enough if he kept his head covered

The orange flecks of clouds touched by sunset have long dissolved from purple into a black canvas above them. The air gets even more cold at night and smells more like grass, until they walk past the gates and take the shortcut through smaller alleys, retracing their daily route to get to the dorm building. They stop by a convenience store to restock on cereal, milk, more salonpas and ointment for Junhui. Wonwoo throws in a couple of jelly candy packets to go with the items on the counter when he notices Junhui staring at the new display beside the doors.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to look for them this year,” he says thoughtfully. He’s looking at the packeted mooncakes on display, festive greetings of the upcoming mooncake festival taped on the display card. Junhui sounded thoughtful about 80% of the time, really. But Wonwoo just likes observing enough to have learned how to pick up the slight disappointment that comes through in his voice.

“Too busy?” Wonwoo asks, and Junhui hums as a yes, shuffling toward Wonwoo with the plastic bag.

“And you absolutely will _not_ get those,” Wonwoo says, not a question because he already knows, as he gestures back to the mooncake display.

“No—I can get a box of assorted flavors from the place I went to last year, for one box of the regular flavor over there,” Junhui shakes his head, affronted at the thought. “And Wonwoo, it just doesn’t taste the _same_ ,” he whines as Wonwoo drags him out of the store. His accent curls around the vowels more pronounced and delicate than ever. It’s not funny but at the same time it is, so Wonwoo tries not to smile.

Seokmin and Mingyu lived a floor below Wonwoo and Junhui, at the farthest unit down the hall because the way the units were in the dorm building meant that they had gotten a place with the best ventilation. Something Mingyu had factored into his decision when he had moved in because as culinary student, he needed to air out the room properly whenever he cooked.

It’s probably why whenever Wonwoo comes back to his room in the evenings, he can always tell if Junhui has cooked earlier in the day—there was always the faint aroma of stir fry meat dishes, sesame oil or ramyun left (usually the kind with real onions, eggs and vegetables in them because unlike Wonwoo, Junhui prides himself on making room for a more wholesome diet).

The door flies open after Wonwoo knocks, and Seokmin is there—beaming brightly and eyes shining until he sees Wonwoo and his face falls. Wonwoo jams his foot out and holds the door knob to stop Seokmin from shutting the door on him.

“Sorry, hyung,” Seokmin giggles—the little shit—when he steps aside to let Wonwoo in. “I was hoping you’d be food delivery; I had cookies for lunch so now I’m starving. Where’s Jun-hyung?”

“Upstairs. Dropping off some things,” Wonwoo says. “What—Mingyu not feeding you enough?”

“Excuse you,” Mingyu says from where he’s settled in on the couch next to Soonyoung. “He’s fed so well that I have to portion out a container for Kyungwon and label it so Seokmin doesn’t eat it.” He shifts to bring his legs up on the couch, which in turn shifts Soonyoung so it breaks his combo on his rhythm game.

“Ah—shit,” Soonyoung mutters distractedly, thumbs still tapping away on his phone, trying to regain his momentum. “Cute, meal prepping for your girlfriend. I wanna say ‘gross’ but I can’t,” he says.

Another knock on the door and Seokmin all but runs to it to find Junhui (who actually gets the door slammed in his face before he can say anything).

“Oh my goooood, _seriously_ though,” Seokmin laments, after Junhui is inside and has released him from a headlock. “Where’s the food?”  
  
“You really shouldn’t have skipped out on a proper lunch,” Mingyu points out.

“Look, just because you’re in _culinary_ —” Seokmin starts and Wonwoo’s phone is ringing; he sees Bohyuk’s name on the screen.

“Hyung, hi,” his brother’s voice comes through. “Uh, am I— interrupting something? Or is that just Seokmin?”

Wonwoo lets his gaze fall on his friends bickering. “It’s just Seokmin. So what’s up?”

“Can’t make it next Sunday, hyung— sorry.” Bohyuk had made plans to visit Wonwoo on the weekend though the Sunday plans had been tentative anyway.

Wonwoo moves to the hallway outside, away from the ruckus entirely made by Seokmin when the delivery guy appears.

“What about Thursday?” Wonwoo offers; Bohyuk didn’t have Thursday classes if Wonwoo recalls correctly.

“Sounds okay. Don’t you have class?” Bohyuk asks.

“Only in the morning. You can take the train back by the evening then.”

“Great— an afternoon with you is more than enough,” he says, the smile coming through in his tone.

“Shut it,” Wonwoo laughs.

 

————————-

 

“Mom hasn’t given away your books yet,” Bohyuk’s saying as his eyes scan over the shelf in front of him. He shifts in place as he studies the volume titles on the spines of comic books.

“I already told her she could sell them, or donate,” Wonwoo sighs. A comic book that has a vague-looking cover with an even more obscure English title catches his eye. He picks it up, absently turning it over to skim through the blurb on the back through the clear film covering it.

“She thinks you might still want ‘em — even though you already took your favorites with you,” Bohyuk shrugs. Half of the shelf in Wonwoo’s dorm room is taken up by his favorite books; Junhui sometimes reads them.

Wonwoo sets the comic back on the shelf. He’d probably always read more novels over comic books. Not that he didn’t enjoy reading webtoons when bored out of his mind, or burning through the manga issues that Soonyoung owned back in high school. Mostly it’s because getting to the end of a book felt easier than waiting for a manga issue release. Soonyoung had explained the suspense of a cliffhanger at the end of a last chapter _is_ where some of the painful hook lies, but Wonwoo is the kind of person that just has the need to know how a story might play out and how it ends.

“How nice,” Wonwoo manages to say.

Bohyuk looks up at him. He’s had ashy brown hair ever since he had started university; had been a spontaneous decision whereas Wonwoo was the one who didn’t do that sort of thing because maintaining the color was too much work. But Bohyuk’s eyebrows stand out now as he raises his them questioningly at Wonwoo, underneath still-growing bangs from an awkward haircut he had gotten from the neighborhood hairdresser back home over the summer break. “She doesn’t talk about it,” he starts slowly. Wonwoo supposes he’s trying to be reassuring.

“Mm. But that’s the thing— she doesn’t talk about it.” There’s a tension in Wonwoo’s chest that seems to prick a tiny bit from the inside.

Bohyuk seems to want to say something but he clamps his mouth shut, frown passing over quickly into genuine confusion. “Would you rather they _do_ talk about it then?” He asks.

They both know their parents _used_ to talk about it at home while Wonwoo was away studying—about how Wonwoo’s past girlfriend (just the one girlfriend) had been so nice and that he could choose to find an even nicer, kinder, better girl. It's the black and white mentality that has his parents equal parts lost and relieved when he pointed out that he had really, truly liked her, had found her genuinely beautiful in ways that didn’t fit against him. Had he liked Minkyung as much as Joshua though? Until now, he couldn't really say. He had balked when Soonyoung had pointed out they kind of looked alike and maybe Wonwoo had a type, being doe eyes and pretty eyelashes.

Fast forward a year later and his parents have slapped a bandaid on something that they all know won’t smooth over and heal, whatever healing meant to them. That much was clear when Wonwoo and Bohyuk had gone back to Changwon for a short visit in the summer—before the beach outing. His parents now skirted around a dotted line that dissects their interest in Wonwoo’s life into parts—academics, his general well-being and career prospects of the rapidly looming future. His love life, is the part they don’t really bring up. But really, Wonwoo supposes it could be worse; a lot worse.

“I don’t _know,_ Hyuk,” he sighs.

The wind chimes over the store’s front door sounds off, tinkering in the distance against the air that punches through when someone steps in.

“Sorry, hyung,” Bohyuk blurts out but he smacks at Wonwoo’s side when he gets cuffed by the neck.

“Hurry up and pick already,” Wonwoo waves a hand over the shelves of comic books on either side of them.

“You’re coming home for Christmas right?” Bohyuk asks, gauging Wonwoo’s expression.

Wonwoo just looks at him straight in the eye. “Yes I am,” he answers, flicking the side of his head which earns him a light punch on his shoulder. His mom had brought it up before and he’s said his thanks. Meant it too.

“Found it,” Bohyuk says, several moments later and he’s waving the issue he’s picked in Wonwoo’s face.

After Wonwoo pays, he hands the plastic bag to Bohyuk. “Happy belated birthday,” he says. Bohyuk just smirks and snickers when Wonwoo rolls his eyes at him.

It’s still light outside when they leave the store; the street post already lit are barely noticeable against the brilliant orange sky.

“How is Junhui doing?” Bohyuk asks.

“Good,” Wonwoo replies automatically. He stuffs his hands into the jacket pockets (Junhui’s jacket he actually borrowed—it’s faint but he can smell the familiar light earthy men’s shampoo that Junhui uses). “Super busy right now with a show upcoming.”

“Ah,” Bohyuk nods. “Is he staying here after graduation?”

The cool air stings a little against Wonwoo’s eyes and he blinks furiously. “Uh, he says he hopes to,” he answers. “Next time—when Jun has time, maybe you could hang out with us for a bit,” Wonwoo suggests.

“Oh, that’s cool. Tell him I said hey,” Bohyuk smiles, as they stop in front of the ticketing counter at the subway station.

“Yup.”

“And— hyung,” Bohyuk adds.

“What?”

Bohyuk shakes his head, corners of his mouth upturned that makes Wonwoo want to flick at his forehead and demand that he just say what he was gonna, the little brat. It’s too late for that now because he’s already stepping backwards to board the train.

“Just—call us more often, yeah? Thanks for the present, hyung!”

The train comes to life after the doors slide close. The gentle hum and click clack of the tracks grow louder as the train speeds up, then softer and softer. Wonwoo feels strangely hollow after it leaves, the intercom voice a dull echo in his ears throughout the station.

 

————————-

 

Bohyuk had met Junhui for the first time when he had come over to Wonwoo’s university campus for a visit last year. Summer break of Wonwoo’s junior year had just begun, and Junhui had still been settling in a week after moving in to the dorm room that he and Wonwoo now shared. He had needed to move in to a place closer to campus. Bohyuk had complimented Junhui’s Korean and Junhui had laughed awkwardly while fiddling with the hem of his jacket. But his grin and his soft _thank you_ was genuine.

 _He gets shy when you flatter him, unless it’s about his looks,_ Wonwoo had said to Bohyuk after, when it was them alone, walking back to the same subway station. Bohyuk had snorted but his general opinion was that Junhui is a nice guy.

And he really was. Wen Junhui is the kind of nice that asks each of his friends what their favorite food is so he knows what to get them when they needed to pig out. The kind of nice that sometimes leaves the room to talk on the phone when Wonwoo sleeps (or is really half-awake but Junhui doesn’t know that) so as not to wake him up. The kind of roommate that leaves Wonwoo an extra pack of jelly candies in the cupboard, and pulls out his box of medicine when Wonwoo gets sick and start asking a fast string of questions so he can prescribe him with something—Wonwoo hardly ever has to run to the pharmacy anymore when comes down with something. Overall, a pretty great roommate, not that Jihoon, as his former roommate, had been a bad one.

Junhui is also the kind of nice that stays a bit later than he needs to at the dance studios sometimes to help the juniors out whenever they ran rehearsals for a show. The kind of nice that takes care of his drunk friends and lets Seokmin cry into his shirt if Soonyoung was passed out. Or the kind who pretends not to notice when Soonyoung picks at the skin of his palms but gently pushes a hard mint into his hand when he starts biting his nails too much. He’s the kind of guy that Soonyoung had entrusted to keep his pack of cigarettes from—he had entrusted Wonwoo with his _other_ pack, and his lighter—so Soonyoung could quit smoking. Not just because Junhui could understand how bad the habit was as a fellow theater arts student, but because Junhui really just wants the best for everyone.

“Is that a bad thing?” Junhui had asked before, one lazy afternoon when he and Wonwoo were both in the dorm, each sprawled on the beds, homework left unattended on the floor because they had both gotten distracted by other things.

Wonwoo thought to himself at first, before he had answered.

“No, it’s not,” he had said. “But it can be.”

“I know,” Junhui had simply replied. He hadn’t snipped at Wonwoo; there was no meekness, neither defensiveness. No sour pout that often came from Mingyu or Soonyoung if it had been them.

When Wonwoo glanced at Junhui after he had said that, he wasn’t browsing his phone anymore. His eyes were closed as he laid there on his front, so Wonwoo couldn’t read him and catch on to any signs of discomfort. Noticing behavioral cues are different—he had always said, and had rolled his eyes when his friends dramaticized whatever problems they had that they just couldn’t really face, and had instead thought asking Wonwoo—the resident friend majoring in a psychology field—to play shrink would help.

It occurred to Wonwoo over time, that Junhui is the kind of person that is actually perfectly aware of when he isn’t really facing his own problems. Just looks at Wonwoo straight in the eye when Wonwoo asks _you really sure that’ll help?_ Then he’d let out a laugh not really meant, or sigh, and shake his head. It had also occurred to Wonwoo that Junhui maybe worried him a little more than his other friends did. Gets a weird ache in his chest that vaguely translates itself into Wonwoo’s brain as _you care way too much about this guy, god Wonwoo, get a grip._ So even if Junhui is nice, Wonwoo still calls him an idiot.

When Wonwoo gets back to the dorm room, Junhui is on his bed, already in his sleep clothes with a towel loosely wrapped around his head, covering his face. He lifts it up slightly to peer at Wonwoo when he shuts the door.

“Hey,” he says, letting the towel fall back over his eyes and nose. The further Wonwoo walks into the room, the more pronounced the smell of salonpas is.

“Jeez. Can you even move?” Wonwoo asks, shrugging off the jacket and ruffling up his hair that’s flattened underneath the beanie he had been wearing.

Junhui groans. “No _—_ everything _hurts_ ,” he growls when Wonwoo swats his stomach with a shirt he’s supposed to change into _._

“Bohyuk says hi, by the way,” Wonwoo says, poking around the leftovers in the fridge and pulling out his takeout from the evening before.

“Oh. Okay. Hi Wonwoo's brother,” Junhui mutters, unmoving.

Something clicks in Wonwoo’s head when he recalls the conversation he had earlier. “Are you going back again to China for the Christmas break?” Wonwoo asks. He glances at Junhui, still seemingly dead to the world underneath that towel.

“No,” he says. “Not this time. My mom will still come and see me though, but she’ll leave before actual Christmas day falls.”

Wonwoo looks at him; this time Junhui has pulled the towel down so it covers his mouth now, dark tired eyes blinking at the ceiling. He’s bummed about that, Wonwoo can tell.

“Have you eaten?” He asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor with dinner set on the tiny low coffee table they used for eating their meals on.

“Yeah.” Junhui finally releases his head from the towel, and his hair sticks out in slightly damp streaks. He tries to fling it haphazardly onto the back of the chair near the foot of his bed but the towel slips off on to the floor and he scowls at the offending thing.

“Leave it—I’ll get it,” Wonwoo says mid-bite. “You move worse than a grandpa.”

“Speak for yourself; you nearly died after Mingyu took you jogging on the hike trail,” Junhui says, lowering himself down slowly back on the bed. “So. Why do you ask?”

“Mm?” Wonwoo’s mouth is full of old fried chicken that just isn’t as crunchy anymore.

“Why did you ask about Christmas break?”

Wonwoo shrugs. He picks up Junhui’s towel and drapes it over the chair on his way to the sink. He feels, more than sees Junhui’s gaze on him as he washes his plate. “Just asking. Can’t I?” He counters but Junhui knows he’s teasing.

Junhui huffs, rolls stiffly on his side. “It’s like, September. Christmas isn’t even close. I can work at Minghao’s parent’s store again, just so I won’t be bored out of my mind,” Junhui murmurs, more to himself than Wonwoo. He’s gone back to staring ahead at the ceiling and Wonwoo yanks up the blanket Junhui seems to have neglected.

“You need heat,” Wonwoo tells him, trying to cover Junhui’s legs. Winter is when one notices that the heating in this building doesn’t warm up the rooms properly, but it works well enough in the fall season. “And why are you wearing those? They’re not helping.” He’s wearing those thin cotton sleep bottoms; tonight it’s the ones with Mario and Luigi’s faces all over.

“I’m out of sweatpants that uh, aren’t for practice. And your big pair is in the hamper,” Junhui adds before Wonwoo can offer to lend him that one large pair of sweatpants that could actually let Junhui’s thighs (built, compared to Wonwoo’s thin legs) breathe, nice and roomy.

“No it’s not.” Wonwoo hasn’t seen that pair since—before the summer break, because who wore sweatpants to sleep in the sweltering heat anyway? He finds it buried under a heap too many tones of dark folded clothing in his closet, tosses the thing to Junhui.

“Maybe Mingyu should help rearrange your closet by type _and_ color,” he suggests, sitting up and swinging his legs off the bed slowly.

“Well Mingyu isn’t here and—wow you really move like you’ve got five years left in you—”

“Okay, you’re just exaggerating,” Junhui says, bottom lip jutting out as he hooks his thumbs into the waistband.

“Not hard to, you idiot,” Wonwoo mutters but it’s not really an insult when his tone is absent and plain distracted; he didn’t look away in time to give Junhui the dignified privacy of shucking off those flimsy Mario and Luigi pajama bottoms and wiggling lethargically into the pants. He’s seen Junhui’s legs a million times already—lean thighs, the kind of strong and sinewy that Wonwoo finds himself trying not to stare at too often when Junhui walks around in his boxers. So he only closes his eyes and looks up at the ceiling when he realizes that _oh_ right, those are _his_ pants and Soonyoung’s goblin laugh is loud and sounding off in his head at the joke it implied.

“Did you forget to do something?” Junhui is looking at him, head cocked to the side at whatever hopefully blank enough expression Wonwoo has on right now.

“Uh,” Wonwoo responds lamely. “No?”

Junhui nods, then looks down at his hands placed on his knees. “Thanks by the way,” he says, and Wonwoo just stiffly nods in return.

They’re both lounging in their beds after the evening passes, one lamp turned on and Wonwoo’s laptop screen had gone black ages ago. Wonwoo thinks he might fall asleep to the faint tinkering sound effects of Junhui’s mobile game, when he gets a message. It’s his mom. She had sent a politely pleased sticker emoji in response to the selca of him and Bohyuk that he had posted hours ago in their chat. He stares at his screen and lets the hand holding the phone drop to the bed.

“Jun?” There’s a hum from Junhui’s direction and that’s good enough. “I might come back here right after New Year.” He hears Junhui’s ‘oh’ at this next.

“Classes won’t start until a week later by then,” Junhui muses out loud. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll just—be here.” He stares at the shadows cast in the corners of the ceiling, not unlike his old bedroom back home, except he had used the lamp lighting to play hand shadows as a child before he fell asleep.

“With me?” Junhui teases, one corner of his mouth turned up in a lazy smile that’s practically a smirk, the dimple there looking deeper with the way the dim light falls over his face.

“Pssh.” Still Wonwoo can’t help but crack a smile. He curls in on himself, shifting under the covers. Deliberates for a split second. “Yeah with you.”

There’s the lazy smile-smirk again, and the light reflected earnestly in Junhui’s eyes when Wonwoo reaches over to turn off the lamp.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Almost Touching](https://open.spotify.com/track/6tc8LD3yczGPE4P7Z1qBEq?si=U-m9OZvlR5WV4dOt6mRt2w) by skirts is a great song. maybe someday i'll post the whole writing playlist i have for this fic.


	3. ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo goes on a food hunt, and Junhui has to look at furniture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my chapter summaries don't make sense, i don't have the power to think of good summaries

The baby wailing several feet away makes the heaviness in Wonwoo’s head bloom into a brilliant throbbing pain again. He and Mingyu are in a bakery—both armed with their phones out to help find the things they’re supposed to get. It had been relatively quiet except for the kitchen din coming from the back door. The comforting aroma of bread baking and dough, sugary sweetness in the air churning out, had momentarily made his sleep-deprivation-induced headache subside.

Now though, the sobbing sound pricks through his skull, and Wonwoo feels his right eye twitch a little. He just tugs his bucket hat down lower, as if that would help. Still manages to crack a polite smile at the mother who looks apologetic. Beside him, Mingyu coos quietly at the little baby squirming. But he subsequently gets ignored so he goes back to his phone.

“Minghao wants the chocolate ones and the ones with meat,” Mingyu points out, looking back at the basket of mooncakes in front of him. “What are you getting?”

“Red bean. Or yeah, meat,” Wonwoo reads off the phone screen. “Wait a minute.” Wonwoo freezes. “They’re out of red bean.” He peers at the empty basket that has the label “Red Bean Paste” stuck to it.

“Okay. We can find them somewhere else,” Mingyu reassures, yanking Wonwoo by his sleeve as he heads for the door. Mingyu had been the only one who was willing and free enough today to accompany Wonwoo on his food hunt, but he had also been here more times with Minghao, meant he at least knew Chinatown’s streets marginally better.

Eventually they find another bakery with more people, to Wonwoo’s slight distress, but they find a decent discount off of the mooncakes there.

The streets are unfamiliar here where they’d ridden the train line to. There’s not enough sunlight to sear through Wonwoo’s fading headache, and he feels a little more alive.

“Should I have gotten more chocolate ones?” Mingyu asks after he’s done snapping photos for stories, lifts the bag in his hand. Wonwoo eyes it. “‘Cause they’re also for Jieqiong.”

“You kidding me? They’re enough to feed more than the two of them,” Wonwoo says. He’s pretty sure one of the boxes will go to Mingyu and Kyungwon anyway. They’ve chilled out past the honeymoon phase, or maybe they haven’t because Wonwoo still occasionally catches the way Mingyu looks at her when he’s watching her talk. Either way, it’s cute. And the sight of them together sometimes, so _normal_ , it almost hurts.

“So, since when were they back together again?” Wonwoo asks, only mildly surprised.

“Um, a month ago, I think,” Mingyu says, scratching his chin in thought. “I think it’s a good thing. Like they’re really trying to make it work this time round y’know?”

All Wonwoo knows, or rather, has heard from Mingyu and Junhui—is that Minghao and his girlfriend had been stuck in a weird place for months prior to them ending it the term before.

“Like, when they broke up, Minghao— well, I’ve just never seen him so _down_ that way, ever,” Mingyu continues. “I actually thought at one point Seokmin might have been dealing better. I mean, everyone’s different I guess. Also, I don’t think setting Seokmin up with someone so fast is the right thing to do but Soonyoung-hyung thinks it might help...” Mingyu trails off, brows creased a little.

“Soonyoung thinks _a lot_ of shit might help,” Wonwoo says. “I wouldn’t worry about it, really,” he adds, nudging Mingyu with his elbow.

They walk in zig zags spreading across the street, past the occasional long lines leading to vendors. If Wonwoo had been here with Junhui, he’d probably fall asleep on the train ride going back, because Junhui would make sure they wouldn’t leave the place until Wonwoo’s stomach was full and satisfied.

“So what about you, hyung?” Mingyu’s voice cuts through Wonwoo’s fleeting thoughts of the taste of spicy lamb, Junhui’s rapid Mandarin, sharp angles and long limbs bumping against Wonwoo’s when they share food sometimes.

“Hmm?”

“You’re doing well now that Melodrama has long stopped being the soundtrack of your life. Love that album, by the way,” Mingyu comments, when Wonwoo opens his mouth to declare that Melodrama is a _great_ album and that he will still put it on blast.

“Yep. Made peace with my brooding loneliness,” Wonwoo says, reaching out to put an arm around Mingyu’s shoulder but retracts it immediately when Mingyu almost trips and stumbles over his own feet.

“Hey. Hey—would you do this for me if I wanted mooncakes?” Mingyu asks, digging violently through his long coat pockets to find his metrocard as they finally reach the station.

“Uh...Probably not?”

Mingyu puts a hand over his heart, his face devoid of any real emotion. “You’re so _nice,_ hyung. Gotta ask Jun-hyung what’s it like being privileged.”

Wonwoo kicks lightly at the yellow line by the platform edge. The train is nearing, lights glowing dim while other people edge closer. It’s just past 11 AM, and the train cars aren’t full this time on a slow Tuesday. Wonwoo’s phone buzzes against his thigh when they’ve seated themselves.

Junhui:  _Hey. Can I eat the black bean noodles in the fridge? I’ll cook you dinner later, pleasepleaseplease I’m famished._

Wonwoo had bought two bowls the evening before, but because he is a reasonable man with a reasonable stomach, and he really does not have the power that Junhui does, he saved the second bowl for breakfast, which he didn’t eat. His hasty breakfast earlier was toast, with lots of water.

His phone pings again with another message: _Is it even safe to eat?_

It’s only after Wonwoo replies that he realizes Mingyu’s been looking over at his phone. Suddenly he remembers the whole damn point of this morning’s recent events and wastes no more time in telling Mingyu: “By the way, Jun has no idea we went to get mooncakes. So don’t say a thing.” He pauses. “If and wherein appropriate, please tell Seokmin to shut up about it,” he adds pleasantly, just to be safe.

Mingyu pulls a face. “I didn’t tell him anything yet.”

 

————————-

 

When Junhui is happy, or in a good mood with his head elsewhere, he starts humming to himself. Sometimes he sings softly—voice high and sweet like citrus dripping, light and airy.

Once Wonwoo falls asleep while Junhui’s singing quietly to himself with his earphones in, still up late. Wonwoo dreams of windchimes. He’s standing at the foot of a waterfall, stream bubbling, clear water travelling to who knows where. His body had been slow and almost frigid; he doesn’t see mountains, or green woods in his peripheral view. But he hears those windchimes. When he tries to move to look for the sound, the dream shifts into something else—falls away from conscious waking memory.

Wonwoo has only ever asked once about what he sings. Junhui had asked if it was bothering him, like “dying kitten level bothering”. Even when Wonwoo said no, Junhui had called him a liar, chuckling. It was apparently this Chinese pop ballad that Junhui claimed used to be really popular years ago. Wonwoo realized then, after the conversation, that he hadn’t continued singing that day.

So now he just listens, doesn’t ask anymore and besides—it’s background noise he’s gotten so used to. He’s been hearing it more often these past couple days when there’s still a few mooncakes left in the fridge, the richness of them too heavy and filling for both of them to finish in a day.

It’s nearing the weekend, hurtling towards the end of September. Wonwoo wakes up to the human radio turned on low in the morning before Junhui leaves for class, and maybe he expects to get back hearing it too.

But a little past 10 PM, after an evening class and late dinner with Seokmin and Mingyu, the room is dark. He stumbles, swears over the shoes strewn in front of the door. The street lamp outside spills light through the parted curtains, and Junhui should probably be doing work, but he’s not. The blue glow of his phone screen flickers out when he locks it, so Wonwoo can’t make out his face as he leans against the wall on his bed. It’s his voice, when he says hey to Wonwoo in greeting—always Junhui’s voice that gives something away. And then usually his eyes, when they do hold eye contact; like strings taut in between with the things he wants to say, all at once.

“Want me to keep the lights off?” Wonwoo asks. “Just saying, it’s a little creepy when you’re just sitting there like that.”

“Yes. Please,” Junhui whispers.

Wonwoo putters about the room in the semi-darkness, setting down his things, grabbing his towel. There’s the trace of ginger with something fried in the air. He hasn’t found out yet what Junhui cooked this time, the leftovers packed in the fridge, but he wonders how long Junhui had been here.

“There’s this book I read before,” Wonwoo begins. He isn’t much of a talker, but with Junhui, it’s easy. “About a family living in a house. Manor, basically.”

Junhui shifts down lower against the wall on his bed. The silver bracelet he wears catches the street light coming in, flecks of warm white filtering through the trees outside the window.

“They have this room they keep locked. Every time they open it, and turn on the lights, something new appears in the middle of the room just there. But each one of the family gets something they want every so often.”

Junhui looks at him for a couple long seconds, expression indiscernible. “Do they have to ask to get what they want?”

Wonwoo sits on his own bed, opposite, so he’s facing Junhui. “Not all the time. Most of the time they only get what they need, even if they wanted something else that badly.”

“Sounds about right. Who gives it to them?”

“You really wanna know? I could lend you the book. It’s not here though.” Whether his mom had considered his suggestion before and already put it in a cardboard box for sale in a corner of his room back home, he had no idea.

“S’alright—I could guess.”

“Yeah?”

Junhui wrinkles his nose and slumps down even further against the wall. “Ugh. Too tired. You gonna make me talk?”

“You’re talking now. What if _I_ just wanna talk about anything?”

Junhui’s lips quirk up. “So. I have to tell you my guess now.”

Wonwoo smiles, mirroring his position as he relaxes further onto his own bed. “Yup.”

“Uh...okay so um. The story...” Junhui holds the flat stare as Wonwoo pelts a stray ball of socks at him from the (clean and fresh) pile he hasn’t yet put away in the drawer from this morning’s laundry pickup. Junhui slowly gets up to join Wonwoo on his bed, perches himself at the edge like he’s being careful. Wonwoo wishes he wasn’t; tensed up with too many things on his mind isn’t a good look on Junhui.

“Bullshit. You remember the story,” Wonwoo tells him gently, nudges Junhui’s hip with his foot.

Junhui looks over his shoulder. “Funny,” he says quietly, the smile still there. Wonwoo doesn’t see how this is funny, but he’s glad Junhui can see humor in a lot of things. “You’re good at this. Now I don’t feel as shit as I did.”

“Don’t say it like that—like I have to be good at this sort of thing. I like doing this with you; like we’re just hanging.”

Junhui stretches out his arms and, without warning, flops down on the bed. The strands of his hair fan out from the crown and brushes against Wonwoo’s fingers on the sheets lightly. “Yeah, just hanging,” he echoes, eyes fluttering shut. The wired anxiety that had been balled up somewhere within Junhui seems to dissipate as he lays there, legs hanging carelessly off the bed. His shoulder presses against Wonwoo’s thigh, rising and falling evenly with his breathing.

“If you lived in that house, what would you get?” Junhui asks, his voice dropping to whispers in between. “And fine I remember. Just didn’t have any guesses yet.” He opens his eyes and looks up at Wonwoo, stretching his neck while at it so he can grin at him upside down.

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “I’m not sure. Some tangible prop to help me fulfill what’s intangible, I guess.”

Junhui rolls over so he’s facing Wonwoo’s thigh. “Like Maslow’s hierarchy?”

Wonwoo laughs. “Yeah. That's how the story goes.”

“Do you think it’d be better off like that?”

Wonwoo pulls at a stray thread at the crew neck stitching of Junhui’s t-shirt. “Maybe not. If people don’t know what they need then what’s the point?”

“I dunno. Finding out?” Junhui sighs, like a question that turns into a statement.

“Right.” Wonwoo briefly plays with the strands of Junhui’s hair spread out on the bed, running fingers through the silky hair but not quite touching his head.

“Gonna take it easy after the show next week. I love Minghao’s aunt and I’m done with P.T. but, man,” Junhui huffs.

“So then you _take it easy_. For real because the phrase is relative for you.”

“In these trying times? Oh definitely.”

Junhui had gotten a very mild knee injury through dance towards the end of their junior year. Mingyu had shed a tear of relief for them all when he’d found that what was left of Junhui’s finals when he got sent to the clinic, was mostly papers and a screenplay he just had to turn in.

It’s healed now, and he had gone back to his regular level of dance practice, courtesy of Minghao’s doctor relatives living in Seoul.

But Junhui would have stopped physical therapy earlier if he hadn’t been at the wrong place and time when Soonyoung had lost control of his worn bike down a long slope during the summer vacation.

It also wouldn’t have been that big of a mess if it hadn’t been like this: Jihoon clinging onto Soonyoung behind him on that bike, yelling. And his yelling drowned out by Seokmin and Boo Seungkwan, one of Seokmin’s music friends, harmonizing an impressive duet rendition of _Like a Prayer_ that had Junhui enthralled (“Hey, it was fucking mesmerizing, Wonwoo—if you’d been there, you’d understand,” Junhui muttered in Minghao’s aunt’s clinic, wincing when she tapped his knee and said “ _Junhui_ , sweetie, your language”). Junhui’s steadily recovering ligaments had been crushed by Seokmin’s weight and bike metal combined. But to be fair, Soonyoung had walked out of that ordeal with three stitches in his forearm and naturally Jihoon never wanted to share a bike with him, ever.

“Wonwoo, you got time to kill tomorrow?” Junhui asks, rolling over on his stomach, away from Wonwoo. He props himself up on his elbows, expectant and patient.

“Depends. Tomorrow when?”

“Afternoon.” Junhui looks sheepish suddenly, and then clears his throat. “Could you—help pick a birthday gift for my dad?”

 

———————-

 

“I never told you, did I?” Junhui says from where he’s squatted down to look at the cheesy Number 1 Dad mugs on a bottom shelf. “Chuseok always makes me think of him.”

They’re at a gift and novelty store, just one of plenty there in the mall that they’ve gone to. Wonwoo had been going around for the better half of this store shaking all the snowglobes on display to amuse himself. It was only when Junhui had joined in that they’d received glares from the store attendant, so Wonwoo picked one he’d liked. He cradles it in his arm now.

“You never told me,” Wonwoo affirms, passing by fancy pens and calligraphy tools.

“Oh. Well—I didn’t see my dad last year for his birthday so I just didn’t think to bring it up.” Junhui’s gaze lands on the magnetic penis bookmarks. “I’ve always wondered why these aren’t in the risque party game shelf.”

“The fact that they don’t even look like dicks, is probably why,” Wonwoo answers. “Lacks detail in the shape.”

Junhui ugly snorts into his hand. “You know what—I think I’d be better off at IKEA, at this rate.”

“Because your dad has a thing for furniture and household items?”

“Yes, he actually does,” Junhui says, loosely grabbing Wonwoo’s wrist. “Let’s go to budget IKEA on the third floor.”

“Hold on, I gotta pay for this.” Wonwoo motions to the snow globe tucked in his arm.

“Why the deer?” Junhui asks, eyeing it curiously.

Wonwoo had chosen a small snow globe of two deer in winter woods. There’d been one of a fox in snow; Junhui pointed at it earlier and said “Wonu, look, it’s you.” But there was something about winter scenes that made the little animal figures in the globes look colder, more barren no matter how pretty and adorned they were in design. Most of the models depicted were solitary housed in their orbs, save for the Rudolphs, always accompanied by Santa.

“Because they’re not alone,” Wonwoo says simply, shaking it again. The white plastic swirls in the liquid until it falls slower like soft sheets around the deer.

 

———————-

 

Last Chuseok, Wonwoo had visited home for a couple of days with Bohyuk. He’d spent the majority of it eating at his parents’ home for the memorial service meant for his late paternal grandma. Then after all that was over he spent it in his uncle’s house, so him and Bohyuk could watch over his younger cousins gathered there. Occasionally squeezed themselves next to the kids when they begged to play video games with him.

That evening, last year, Wonwoo catches his mom sitting in the kitchen as he passes by the open doorway. She had her head rested on one hand—the ominous but almost laughable picture of mild frustration paired with a pseudo-headache. Usually that could mean his dad forgot to fill up the car with gas again, or either one of her sons got the wrong type of fabric conditioner from an impromptu grocery run.

But she’d been talking to Wonwoo’s uncle then, so it meant something other than mundane household slip-ups. Wonwoo had heard his own name that evening. What his mom was trying to achieve by talking to his uncle about who Wonwoo might bring home and introduce to them, the way Bohyuk might bring home his girlfriend soon, he had no clue.

Years ago, Wonwoo would have lingered for a moment longer and strain his ears to listen, in case Soonyoung’s name was thrown around in hushed conversation. He and Soonyoung were both sixteen when Soonyoung started going to Wonwoo’s uncle’s for monthly sessions. Soonyoung was lucky enough to be raised by parents who loved him enough to let himself decide whether or not going to the quack school counselor was better than letting Wonwoo’s uncle ask questions that were only necessary, and help Soonyoung off his meds.

This year, Chuseok isn’t any different when Wonwoo and his brother come home again. This time, Soonyoung visits Wonwoo at his parents’ home.

“It’s funny how your uncle doesn’t even _blink_ when I tell him about how Marlboro Reds feel weird after you’ve gone for menthol,” Soonyoung says on the floor of Wonwoo’s bedroom, trying to kick his ass (and failing) at Tekken.

“That’s because he used to like the reds, until he switched to blue—Camel,” Wonwoo replies, shoving him in jest just to mess up the combo Soonyoung was about to execute. “You’re my best friend before anything else and he knows it. How the fuck else would he react to that if he’s been seeing you around for ages? At least you’ve quit, somewhat.”

“Somewhat, eh. Quitting. Making progress.” He’s trying the only-smoke-when-you’re-drinking method, something that was proving to be effective on him cutting down because he mooches his cigs now off Jihoon.

Wonwoo’s uncle was professional when he needed to be, and observant enough to guess certain things. Maybe that was a thing that ran in the family, as illustrated by a nine-year-old Wonwoo already knowing how to guess what kind of angry his parents were, even if no words were being said. It was a bit like feeling ghosts, except Wonwoo stopped being scared a long time ago.

At Wonwoo’s parents’ home, they hold the food service for his grandma again. She’d passed on years ago from a stroke, although the ghosts of the things they don’t talk about in the open has a stronger presence. Occasionally, the ghosts show themselves. When Wonwoo passes by the kitchen area after he’s helped cleaned up, he doesn’t hear his name bounced around in the kitchen area laced with a sliver of distress in his mother’s tone. Bohyuk was right—they’ve stopped talking long ago.

He checks his phone as he’s going to bed; Junhui has sent him messages on kkt.

Junhui:  _My dad says hi by the way. Thanks for helping me pick, he really liked the gifts!_

Junhui:  _Happy Chuseok, Wonu!_

He stares at the cute sticker after the last message and types out a reply. Junhui had bought a sleek vacuum flask, and upon Wonwoo’s prompt suggestion, a portable reading light to help his dad go about his very important travelling businessman endeavors. Wonwoo suddenly thinks about calling Junhui, just because. He thinks about Junhui just a week ago, in their dark dorm room, tired and worried about things—possibly his own ghosts. Junhui’s dad isn’t quite one, but Wonwoo supposes there were just some things that left a dent in memory when one parent decides to leave for good.

Several moments later after no reply from Junhui, and scrolling through his boring feed, he locks his phone to put it aside. His room had remained the same, except the shelf is empty and there’s a cardboard box his mom has pushed into his closet while she’d been cleaning, full of the books he’d told her she could give away.

That night, he wonders how long it’ll be until his chest crushes against the weight of his thoughts, until they suffocate him in his sleep when he’s lying on his old bed. He’s left the curtain parted just slightly to let the moonlight seep in, a thin line of light cutting through the grays in his room. It’s a habit he’s picked up just by living with Junhui for the past year. So he lays in bed facing the window, staring at the parted curtain illuminated softly by the moon until his eyelids finally grow heavy.

 

———————-

 

“Can I ask—why did you take up Psych?”

Wonwoo messily peels the skin off a tangerine that he and Junhui are sharing a bag of in the common room of their dorm.

It’s been about three weeks of being with this guy as his new roommate. So far, he’s found out Wen Junhui, the theatre arts Chinese student, is from Shenzhen, specifically, and has been into the performing arts from the tender age of five. He actually laughs at Wonwoo’s jokes sometimes and is also habitually awake at 6 AM sharp even on weekends. He also likes jelly snacks and of course, citrus fruits.

“The way people think fascinates me,” Wonwoo answers. “My uncle’s a psychiatrist, and my mom was a nurse. She doesn’t practice anymore,” he adds, when Junhui looks confused. “My dad got a better job so now she helps my aunt with her food catering.”

“Oh,” Junhui nods. “Do you like helping people too?” The guy talks with his hands sometimes. Wonwoo’s noticed the silver bracelet on his wrist and the ring around his pinky finger because of this. Maybe one day, he’ll ask Junhui about them.

Wonwoo doesn’t consider himself highly altruistic by nature. Maybe Junhui is though—Wonwoo struggles a bit with peeling open the next tangerine (he’s so used to having Seokmin do it for him), so Junhui gestures to him, and asks if he can help. Wonwoo lets him and mutters his thanks.

“I’m not really a saint, but yeah, I do,” Wonwoo says, tucking a piece of the fleshy fruit into his mouth, the sweetness stinging his tongue when he bites into it.

One side of Junhui’s mouth turns up at his words. His eyes are sharp and piercing when they meet Wonwoo’s. It makes him nervous about what might happen if he stares long enough into them. It's kind of funny how months later, the part of Wonwoo that wants to get to know the different ways that Junhui looks at things and what he might be thinking when their gazes meet, grows harder and harder to ignore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was all very exposition-y that i just really needed to get out first before i continue any further with this fic.  
> i also said that i'd post my writing playlist for this fic some day, which i will, but that too is constantly changing thing because i keep adding to it.
> 
> in the meantime, here's: [Salmon, Water](https://open.spotify.com/track/0qIE7hBRq4zt9G8b1VtaVm?si=6fCgvYMRS2uBf0ye5vDC7Q) by ford and [Apartments (Reprise)](https://open.spotify.com/track/7fVa9zgvP2knmxfagC4qzX?si=XeQTdAgERfOJjUdV-exPQA) by Dog Trainer as song recs.
> 
> As always, comments are welcome


	4. halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo for once, does not get drunk at a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> halloween is that time of the year guys holy shit time flies.

“Should you _really_ carry that thing around?” Jihoon asks, swatting away the toy bow Wonwoo has been brandishing around for the past fifteen minutes while trying to help Seokmin (really just sitting there and giving orders) plaster a placard more securely to Soonyoung’s torso.

They’re supposed to go to a Halloween party at one of Seungcheol’s former varsity teammates’ downtown. Seungcheol had just graduated and considered this his ‘last chance’ to get horribly but comfortably drunk on Halloween’s eve and so by default, Jihoon is also going. He’d passive aggressively extended the invitation to Wonwoo, Soonyoung, and company.

“Are you going post-apocalyptic this year? Because you can have my bow for your weapon,” Wonwoo offers, waving around the toy.

“I am. But I’m _the_ reason for the apocalypse so I won’t need it,” Jihoon mutters, shrugging on a tattered shirt. “When are Junhui and Minghao getting here?”

“We got plenty of time, man, just chill,” Wonwoo says, reclining back on the couch, legs up and feet dangling off the arms because Seungcheol will lose his shit if he sees feet that aren’t his own, or Jihoon’s, touching surfaces that they sleep on.

“If one of them doesn’t get here soon, you know who’s going to be doing the rest of our makeup, right?”

“First of all—fuck you,” Soonyoung says, pulling a face. “Second, how hard is getting you to look like a zombie gonna be?” Soonyoung twists around as best as he can to scoff at Jihoon, arms spread out. “We cake on foundation, eyeshadow, _Pillow Talk_ , and fake blood _._ Keep that face on—the face you make after a paintball sesh with me and Mingyu, post-finals,” Soonyoung adds. Jihoon throws the lipstick with the aforementioned shade at Soonyoung on his way to answer the door when it buzzes.

“Here,” Junhui says, a moment after he comes in, holding out a blue hakama he’s extricated from the bunch of folded clothing in his backpack. “Now you can live out your Ghibli dreams,” Junhui simpers like a proud mother, helping Wonwoo slip it on over the long-sleeved navy blue shirt he’s wearing. “It’s too bad we don’t have a really cool bow.”

“It’s for the better, trust me. For fuck’s sake, you might poke an eye out,” Jihoon grumbles at Wonwoo when he drops the bow again. “Do you _want_ a rerun of last year’s Halloween?”

“What happened?” Junhui asks, at the same time Seungcheol appears out of nowhere, rounding the corner from the tiny hallway.

“Yeah, what did happen?” Seungcheol asks, distractedly glancing at the wall mirror near the entryway. Wonwoo can practically smell the hair gel that Seungcheol is smoothing down his hair with.

“We don’t _talk_ about what happened on Halloween last year,” Wonwoo grits out. Wonwoo nearly sent an innocent freshman to the ER. But what a few of the people in Jihoon’s living room don’t know won’t kill them. Junhui stops dabbing concealer over acne scars to huff in disappointment at not being one of those people. “Hyung, what are _you_ supposed to be?”

“You can’t tell?” Seungcheol is surprised like his bloodied doctor coat is the most glaringly obvious thing in the world of budget store-packaged bloodied doctor coats. “I’m Hannibal Lecter!” Explains the fake dried blood smeared on his chin. Seungcheol flaps his hands at Wonwoo, who’s getting his hakama held in place properly by Junhui delicately placing safety pins in various places. “What about you, huh? Please—no Joseon king costumes, it’s Halloween for Christ’s sake.”

“Have you watched Princess Mononoke?” Wonwoo asks. Junhui turns him around and steps closer toward him with a makeup brush and a palette in his hands, so Wonwoo can only hear Seungcheol’s response.

“Nope, sorry. I think one of the guys at the party is going as a Ghibli character though.”

“Junhui, you’re not going as—yourself, right?” Jihoon chances.

“I’m not dressed yet—I’m going Victorian,” Junhui responds two beats later (Seokmin mutters _I thought he was gonna be Princess Mononoke_ to Soonyoung). He’s holding Wonwoo steady by the shoulder, mouth slightly open in concentration as he draws the marking on Wonwoo’s left cheek. Wonwoo’s neck prickles with the warmth of his fingers blending the makeup around the corners of his mouth, even when the heating indoors is on just right to battle the cold weather outside.

“Glad you found purpose for that again,” Seungcheol nods appreciatively at Jihoon’s tattered shirt. Wonwoo too, recognizes it as his favorite red plaid that an ex-girlfriend of Jihoon had given back to him after they broke up, stretched out and practically ruined in the wash.

“Went ham on it this morning with the meat scissors,” Jihoon says, sniffing.

“Freakin’ finally,” Seokmin says, sitting back on the floor to look up at his handiwork.

“Oh my god, dude. That _is_ scary,” Junhui grins at Soonyoung; the laminated placard that hung around his neck and held secure to his torso with added adhesives, displays a bigger version of the typical listings of final grades of the system, but with straight failing marks.

“Wait wait wait,” Seokmin says, scrambling excitedly to his feet and jams on a pair of smart glasses. He puts an arm around Soonyoung, posing with their costumes finally put together; a terrifying professor and his failing grades. It tops their Mario and Princess Peach getup last year.

 

———————

 

The house is pulsing with people weaving in and out, orange and black helium balloons bouncing against the ceiling corners; Wonwoo has had to bat away the balloon threads hanging in front of his face. The cheap bitterness of the liquor spreads throughout him, an almost pleasant kind of heat filling him so of course he already feels light-headed. It’s really the crowd—other bodies that can make the place nearly stifling enough to bring Wonwoo to a sweat. Both Soonyoung and Seokmin are well on their way to drenched with the way they’re dancing around anywhere and everywhere.

Someone bumps into Wonwoo, and shit, he spills his own drink all over the front of his outfit, so he thinks that this is fine. He’s just glad he doesn’t actually have a bow and arrow with him. He also really hopes Junhui doesn’t love this hakama as much as Wonwoo himself loves Mass Effect 2.

“Sorry, hyung!” It’s Mingyu who bumped into him apparently, his hair slicked back, eyes lined and Wonwoo looks at the wet beer stains on Mingyu’s shirt cuffs that some of his drink has splashed on.

“That’s a really nice white shirt you got there,” Wonwoo shouts over the bass coursing everywhere, and Mingyu beams at him. “Where’s Kyungwon?”

“Getting a drink, with Jieqiong. By the way—if you see Seokmin, he might not want to go to the kitchen—”

“Where did Seokmin go?” Soonyoung yells in Wonwoo’s ear, Jihoon beside him, now looking like the real definition of wrecked, disgruntled, and very much undead thanks to Junhui’s work and the dim purple mood lighting.

“I don’t know, but Jaehyun’s here,” Mingyu shouts back.

“Damn. I _knew_ Legolas looked familiar,” Soonyoung frowns, rubbing his jaw as he’s trying to recall.

“Isn’t Legolas here the frosh that Minghao’s friends with? The lanky kid from Hong Kong,” Jihoon blinks at them.

“No way, really?”

“Yeah, Jaehyun is _not_ that tall.“

“God, don’t you just love Halloween?” Wonwoo says in response to Soonyoung’s confusion.

“Hell yeah I do!” Mingyu crows while Wonwoo squints really hard at someone who looks like something between a lizard and a shark.

The sound of glass crashing comes from Wonwoo’s right somewhere and someone is shrieking with laughter. The feeling’s been brewing in the pit of his stomach earlier; one of those qualms he’s had about accepting this party invite bubbles up from his chest and spits itself out.

“Since this is Seungcheol’s friend’s thing, does this mean that all his other friends are here?” Wonwoo asks.

“I guess? The ones who can make it, that is,” Jihoon says, downing the last of his cup. It’s a Halloween party, so that means everyone is bound to try and make it just because. But Jihoon is not in the loop on how one of his—admittedly new—mutual friends with Seungcheol is cause for some of Wonwoo’s emotional turmoil. So Wonwoo just grimaces, and mimics Jihoon, knocking back what’s left of his beer.

“Speaking of Jaehyun, I got some things to talk about—upcoming gigs,” Jihoon lets on, giving Soonyoung and Mingyu a funny look when they stare at him, eyebrows raised. “The guy may have dumped Seokmin, but if you put it past him, he’s not even that much of an asshole,” Jihoon adds, smirking at Soonyoung, who raises his cup in mock salute as he leaves to the look for the kitchen.

Maybe Wonwoo can just pretend he doesn’t recognize Joshua if he really does show up, and then the reasonable part of his psyche tells him that it’s a dick move on his part. He sighs, tugs down the sleeve of his shirt over his wrist.

He’s refilled his cup with coke, when he spots Junhui next to the towering bookcase on the other side of the living room, talking to some guy wearing devil horns and a ridiculous amount of eyeliner. Wonwoo _thinks_ it might be one of the theatre guys he’s seen in one of Junhui’s shows. Soonyoung has gone off to who knows where, probably to try and flirt with Im Nayoung or one of Seungcheol’s other friends, so he can’t ask him. Mingyu has rejoined Kyungwon on one end of the far couches, her shoulder-length black wig catching the light from a nearby lamp so it shimmers.

There’s a girl here with blue hair if Wonwoo looks closely and the light hit just right, and a yellow oversized parka. _Nice parka, and the shoes too,_ Wonwoo had said, grinned at the black loafers and long socks when she came up to him out of nowhere to tell him that Princess Mononoke is one of her favorite Ghibli movies. Wonwoo thought Coraline was good too growing up. But tonight it seems like she’s embodying her in every sense of the word, talking to Wonwoo about how this is all so pointless to her.

“I was so eager to get the hell out of university,” she says, the vape smoke unfurling from her mouth when she exhales. “But then you don’t really celebrate over a plague that holds merit over what kind of a job you get.”

“You graduated?”

“Dropped out.” She tucks her hair behind one ear, leans against the wall. “Started working. Though maybe, one day I’ll get back into studying,” she says wryly, half-smiling. “And you?”

“It’s my last year,” Wonwoo says.

“That’s great.” The smile she gives this time is genuine.

The place isn’t thumping with bass anymore, no subpar raving EDM to cut through his senses like lasers, ever since someone’s switched the playlist to mellow out the atmosphere a little. Something to keep everyone alive for the night and just enough to let Wonwoo hear himself think. So he leans back against the wall too, a strange brand of fascination creeping in fast, as his eyes flit towards Junhui, and the guy who looks like he’s stepped out of a My Chemical Romance music video talking to him. The syrupy scent of strawberry from the vape seems to melt into the sheen of sweat on Wonwoo’s skin.

“If it weren’t for friends, I wouldn’t have gone to this,” Wonwoo says.

“What are you drinking?”

“Coca Cola,” he raises his cup and she laughs, high-pitched and a little hoarse from the lack of water.

“Amazing. And again, pointless,” she jabs, although the smile on her face isn’t unkind; she’s got a nice smile.

“Shame; I like your costume. I don’t think coming here was completely pointless,” Wonwoo says easily, smiles into his drink. The strawberry scent curls in a thick enough haze, too sickly sweet for his liking.

“Thanks. Well it’s nice to see somebody here too that isn’t covered with blood, bandages and masks.” It’s the way her lips are upturned, the way she doesn’t break eye contact when she blows out smoke that makes Wonwoo hear Soonyoung in his head laughing at him with _Jeon Wonwoo, you fucker_.

Because when he looks away, Junhui is in his line of sight again. Devil guy has his head angled closer so he can hear Junhui over the music, and practically reach up to touch Junhui’s necktie or cravat, whatever that thing is (to be fair, Minghao did an impressive job with it. Junhui’s costume being the groom from Corpse Bride is scarily accurate, as a result). Jesus, Wonwoo should probably stop watching. Pay attention to the down-to-earth, pretty girl next to him

“Friend of yours?” He tears his eyes away and the girl’s looking over at them.

“Yeah. The one in the suit over there,” Wonwoo replies; something cold weighs down in his chest to settle in his stomach, and his smile feels tight.

“Do you wanna talk to him?”

“Huh?”

Whatever had been building up between Wonwoo and her a moment ago has disappeared now. But she’s not walking away; the look she gives him is pointed and sharp—too sharp. Wonwoo is all too aware of the heat and his parched throat when he tries to swallow.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—you were looking and so—I just thought—” she starts saying but clamps her mouth shut when Wonwoo moves back, his expression taut.

And then the next thing the girl says, is so not what he’s expecting to hear:

“Sorry, I’m being rude.”

“No I—I didn’t think…”

“It’s cool. You don’t have to explain anything if you don’t want to,” she says, waving her hand awkwardly. Wonwoo just blinks at her.

Maybe a long long time ago, Wonwoo would have taken offense and bristled inwardly at anyone who implied assumptions about who he was. Somewhere in his brain, there’s a tiny version of him sinking into an ocean of mild panic. Although, if he really contemplates it, he’s been swimming in that ocean for a while.

Across the room, he sees Junhui give the guy a much too enthusiastic pat on the back for it to be anything but casually friendly. His lingering smile after Junhui walks away is stiff. Meanwhile, Wonwoo doesn’t have it in him to put up pretenses tonight.

“Thanks. I should uh, probably go join him soon,” he manages to say. “What’s your name?”

“Kang Yebin,” she says, smiling crooked.

“Jeon Wonwoo. Who do you know here?”

Yebin bites her lip in thought, and counts off the names on her fingers. “Im Nayoung, Jung Eunwoo. She sings in gigs a lot around the area.”

“My friend, Jihoon—he sings too,” Wonwoo says.

“Lee Jihoon? Yeah, he’s really good,” Yebin says, her eyes lighting up when she grins, brushing away a stray strand of hair from her face. “I know the young DiCaprio here.”

“Fuck, Vernon?” Wonwoo laughs and she nods, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah—he took it a step further when someone told him he should go as Jack from Titanic. But now I can’t hold it against him for pulling it off so well.” Another huff of smoke fans out towards Wonwoo, who squints through it. “Speaking of whom, I need to go look for him.”

“Right,” he says. “See you around.”

“See ya—and nice meeting you, Jeon Wonwoo.” She waves, moving off to slip past the group of witches engaged in deep conversation in front of them.

Wonwoo lets himself out behind the house, on the wide back porch, where there are people hollering over the rattling foosball table. The sweat cools on his skin against the night air. He’s whipped out his phone to check the time before he goes back to find Junhui (or if he finds Jihoon first, he’ll ask whether Jihoon just happens to know a lot of people who can guess what Wonwoo likes. As if he’s got his whole, but not very extensive, dating history displayed on an invisible placard like Soonyoung’s depressing nightmare of a costume) when someone taps his shoulder.

“There you are,” Seokmin says cheerily. “D’you hear that Chucky got drunk? The Chucky with the whiskey going around.”

“Sweet. Satan sleeps tonight,” Wonwoo replies. He will now be able to continue keeping his track record of successfully avoiding the people who pours hard liquor down other’ throats at parties.

“I’m exhausted,” Seokmin sighs, a dreamy grin on his face as he smooths down his oxford shirt. He’s not wearing his fake glasses anymore. His hair, that was perfectly styled earlier to look like Wonwoo’s math teacher in high school, sticks up everywhere now from all the dancing. Among other things.

“Bet you are, buddy,” Wonwoo says, glancing meaningfully at Seokmin’s neck; the jarring porch light above them is _really_ putting focus on the purpling bruises peppered there underneath the collar. Seokmin clears his throat too loud and tries to straighten his shirt, cheeks already redder than they were before. “Shouldn’t you be with Soonyoung? Your outfits put together make a way better impression.”

“What?” Seokmin gasps, both hands over his chest. “That is true but on my own, I _could_ you know, pass for a hot professor! Am I not sexy enough?” Seokmin runs a hand through his hair, and grimaces at his own hand from the texture. Aside from sweat, he smells weirdly like oranges. “Well, at least that’s what Jaehyun told me, said my thighs look particularly good—“

“What?” Wonwoo chokes out, finally zeroing in on the lipstick smears on the tips of Seokmin’s shirt collar. He never did find out Jaehyun went as this Halloween, and isn’t sure he wants to know now.

Seokmin takes a deep breath, accepting his fate of having holes burned through him by Wonwoo’s eyes. “So, I went to the kitchen,” he begins and Wonwoo groans.

Someone stumbles against the doorway behind them, and Minghao appears, his pinstriped suit still intact but the faint markings of his stache on his upper lip has already faded.

“‘Sup,” Minghao nods at them both, stopping short when he looks at them both, eyes shifting carefully between Wonwoo and Seokmin’s expressions.

“Hey man!” Seokmin squeaks. “Whatcha doing out here? Thought you were gonna leave early with the missus.” He grins so widely that Wonwoo scrunches his face at him.

“Jieqiong drank too much,” Minghao says. “So she’s sobering up right now with Nayoung before we leave. Which brings me to tell you that Seungcheol’s looking for you—upstairs,” he says to Wonwoo, jerking his head upward.

“For what?” Wonwoo says, already wary. “I swear to god, if he and his ex-soccer buddies are gonna try to convince someone that their tarantula needs a new home, I’ll—”

“Junhui is drunk,” Minghao says flatly, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face and Seokmin garbles out something unintelligible in surprise. Junhui hardly ever gets drunk. So this should be fun. “Seungcheol-hyung would _love_ to take care of him, you know that. But tonight he said he wanted to get smashed, so…”

“Got it. Want some soda?”

Minghao looks affronted for a second at the near-empty cup of coke Wonwoo is holding, so Seokmin takes the moment to have it all for himself.

 

———————

 

“Do you wanna go home?” Wonwoo asks, like he’s squatting down and talking to a very troubled five-year-old sitting on the mattress on the floor.

Junhui, whose eyes are in a perpetual state of squint now, runs a hand over his face. “Yes. I can’t sleep here. Why can’t I sleep here?” Wonwoo doesn’t even know whose room they’re in but Seungcheol had left Junhui in here apparently before he’d asked for Wonwoo to help. It looks like it isn’t used often—there’s the washed down scent of detergent on old sheets, and wood polish from the wardrobe and dresser, which is the only furniture here aside from the bed and its pullout mattress. No lived in home decor or mementos cluttered around the room, except for the framed painted landscape hanging on a wall.

Junhui closes his eyes and Wonwoo prods him in the chest. “Jun. Junnie, come on. Let’s go.” He stand ups, when Junhui makes an effort to. “Want more water?”

“I wanna never drink again,” Junhui groans dramatically. His consonants aren’t as soft when slightly slurred and his accent bleeds through clearer than ever. “Hey,” Junhui says. “I can go ahead and leave though, you don’t have to go back with me.”

“You can barely walk.” That’s not completely true; he can manage well without Wonwoo’s help. Wonwoo is just envious that his own balance and motor functions won’t be the same after that many shots. “You’re my perfect cue to leave this place,” he says, patting Junhui on the shoulder.

“Really? Thought you were having fun.”

“Not as much fun as Seokmin,” Wonwoo mutters.

“Oh yeah—are him and Soonyoung still going at it?”

“In what context? That sounds horrible.”

“Like, how are they still alive?” Junhui elaborates with a groan, but he’s smiling too.

“They won’t be for long. It’s late—they know you’re drunk, and we can go home.”

Junhui closes his eyes, and sighs in relief. In the dim light, he looks ghastly, and would terrify kids who still believed in Santa and monsters. When he rubs his eyes, Wonwoo holds his wrist gently to get him to stop ruining his face. “Dude, your makeup,” he grins at how Junhui’s got just one eye ridden with a fake dark circle, and the rest spread out over his right cheekbone.

“Well—oops,” Junhui says, not sorry at all. “I did a good job on yours though, right?”

“Sure.” He did—Wonwoo’s bare-faced no-makeup makeup is stunning. He’s now properly enlightened on the importance of highlight and contour.

Junhui chuckles, and their hands shift until Junhui is gripping his and Wonwoo holds him steady when he sways a little. “I bet that girl agrees. The—uh, the girl with the yellow jacket?”

“Coraline?” Wonwoo swallows, feels small knots tighten in his gut when he remembers the way Kang Yebin had looked at him—not quite with sympathy, but with something else that he can’t place.

“Oh right! So _that’s_ who she was dressed up as,” Junhui says, pulling his hand away. “Yeah well, she—um, she looked nice. I think.”

“You think?” Wonwoo snorts.

“I was already kind of hit when I saw her.”

Junhui can hold his alcohol just fine—and then Seungcheol had told Wonwoo when he came into the room moments ago that Junhui lost count after the twelfth shot of the thing they’d been mixing. It’s the rum apparently. Junhui and that much rum meant _this,_ Seungcheol had motioned to him splayed face down on the mattress, shoes, coat and tie off. Wonwoo is learning now that Junhui and that much rum to drink, means that he says a lot of things.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Junhui says, and laughs right after the words come out.

“We’re talking now.”

They should have left a while ago. But they’re still here in a dusty guest room, the chaos downstairs in this house barely noticeable when Junhui stumbles backwards, and plops back down to sit on the mattress. He laughs quietly when looks up at Wonwoo, who sits down next to him like a magnet being pulled.

Junhui closes his eyes and rests his head on Wonwoo’s shoulder. It’s usually the other way around, Wonwoo being the one getting intoxicated too easily first, or him against Junhui’s side trying to stay awake to finish a long-winded movie on his laptop, a pillow cushioning his head against Junhui’s arm.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep here,” Wonwoo says.

“You’re gonna have to carry me out.”

“I’ll get Seungcheol and Mingyu to drag you out.”

“You‘re lazy.”

Wonwoo stiffens as Junhui hooks an arms around his neck beside him and leans into him. “No, you’re just heavy,” he says but he wraps one arm around Junhui’s waist anyway. His hair is coarse and stringy with hardened styling products, when his head brushes against Wonwoo’s jaw. He lets Junhui stay like that and Wonwoo rests his hand on Junhui’s thigh, feels the shift of the hard muscle when he moves.

“You smell like beer,” Junhui mutters into Wonwoo’s chest. “Gross.”

“Spilled a drink over your shirt thing.”

Junhui hums. “Hand wash it—it’ll be fine,” he murmurs. “Maybe you should keep it; I don’t use it anyway.”

“You’re too nice, man.”

“We share _clothes_ , Wonwoo.” Junhui scoffs, presumably, considering it’s a warbled clucking noise. “I like the hakama. Not gonna let just anyone have it.”

Wonwoo snorts. “So what am I, then?”

Junhui doesn’t answer right away. No corny answer at the tip of his tongue. Wonwoo doesn’t know what to expect, or if he’d even get an answer out of him, but he waits anyway; he always does.

“What do you think we are?” Junhui is smiling, eyes softened in amusement but he sounds like he’s disappointed, and Wonwoo has no idea why.

“We’re friends,” Wonwoo answers promptly. Junhui’s eyes are glazed with the after effects of alcohol, so Wonwoo doesn’t think about it—he pulls Junhui in slowly so he can rest his head on Wonwoo’s shoulder again, and not have to make extra effort to keep his eyes open. Wonwoo feels bad; they should leave the place soon.

“Why do you you say it like it’s a question?” Junhui asks quietly.

“Because it feels like—” Wonwoo starts to say, and the words die on the way to his mouth before they can surface, when he starts to overthink. Soonyoung is his best friend. Jihoon had been a roommate, and is a friend. But conversations like this with Junhui make Wonwoo feel like he’s losing something. People act out of fear as a response to the idea of loss. They fumble around to try regain control, if they don’t sink in and let it engulf them. For Wonwoo, being honest feels like he’s doing both of those things at the same time.

“It feels like—like I’m missing something. I don’t know exactly what, but—” Wonwoo tries to laugh but it sticks in his throat. Because Junhui is a lot of things to Wonwoo, and a lot of things he could be. “It’s stupid.”

Junhui is completely still against him, save for his steady breathing. Wonwoo wonders for a second if he’s fallen asleep on him, dear God.

And then Junhui just says, “It’s not stupid.” He pulls away from Wonwoo’s shoulder to frown at him. “I’m here. I’m not missing. Don’t be sad.” Wonwoo’s chest aches painfully when Junhui says that, uninhibited and so sincere.

“I know.” Wonwoo laughs, the sound fuller this time, and shakes his head. “Wanna go? Come on—you need to shower right after we get home,” Wonwoo tells him, because he’s awkward as hell with his pulse beating loud in his ears. Junhui is still inebriated and it bothers Wonwoo somehow that Junhui might not remember all this the next day.

“So do you. We can shower together—saves time and water.” It’s a joke, and Junhui says it like it’s the greatest idea he’s ever had, like he’s oblivious to how his bad flirting makes Wonwoo turn embarrassingly red and hot all over.

“And how are we gonna do that if we don’t leave this place?”

Junhui's staring at Wonwoo’s arm like it grew an extra hand. He chokes slightly on his own laugh, tipping forward until his forehead touches Wonwoo’s shoulder again, for what feels like the hundredth time tonight. “You can’t just...” He’s clutching Wonwoo’s hand in his. His palm burns warm like a furnace over Wonwoo’s skin. “God, you’re so weird,” he mutters.

“Maybe because I learned from you,” Wonwoo deadpans, pushing at his shoulder.

“Want me to stop saying dumb things, then?” Junhui asks.

There are voices downstairs, the music turned down lower, so the bass is the faintest of pulses through the floors. Meanwhile, the heating in the room wasn’t turned on when Wonwoo came in, but it might as well have been. He can’t tell if it’s hot because of Junhui’s body warmth being so close the whole time, or because Wonwoo feels the embarrassment spread through his back and neck at what his answer to Junhui’s question is going to be.

“Not really,” Wonwoo mutters. He squeezes Junhui’s hand in his, and then like some automatic reflex to touch, Junhui wraps both his arms around Wonwoo’s waist and it’s already warm enough as it is, their limbs knocking against each others’ when the door opens.

Wonwoo forgot it wasn’t locked; not that it needed to be anyway. But Junhui topples over on the mattress, nearly bringing down Wonwoo with him.

It’s an estimated five long seconds of dazed silence where Wonwoo stares at Jihoon standing in the doorway, and Jihoon stares back. Until Junhui announces that he needs to puke out his insides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my late halloween chapter feels like a mess. 
> 
> some of the unoriginal costumes i've given to chars but didn't really highlight are: mingyu and kyungwon as vincent vega and mia wallace (pulp fiction), minghao as gomez addams (so jieqiong was supposed to be morticia in my head, wonwoo as prince ashitaka from princess mononoke and jun as victor from the corpse bride  
>  
> 
> to the lovely person who asked, i'm posting the [fic playlist here](https://open.spotify.com/user/rensshi/playlist/3ESdbg9SUSgJdoRegVpwur?si=tvXkUdezSCW8tshJwQBcnw)!


	5. dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams can eat at you, if you don't eat your own heart out first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to S☆ for being my unofficial beta for some parts of the chapter.

Wonwoo has an early memory when he was around eleven years old, where he meets his dad at a florist. His dad had picked up a bouquet for Wonwoo’s grandmother when she was in the hospital for a short period, and that was the first time he’d seen so many flowers at once. He wished his dad had chosen sunflowers besides just calla lillies for her.

That’s what Wonwoo is thinking when Seokmin gets him a Starbucks planner.

“Can this count as an early Christmas gift?” Seokmin drops the planner on the table in front of Wonwoo.

“It took you no effort at all to get this. Thanks,” Wonwoo drawls.

“No problemo,” Seokmin says, clearly pleased with himself. He and Mingyu already collectively consumed more than enough of the Starbucks drink menu to not feel the loss when Seokmin lets Wonwoo reap the overvalued benefits off of his (second) stamp card. But the thought counts. He got him the navy blue one with the sunflower on it. Or rather, Junhui had chosen it, Seokmin mentions. He’s lingering at the pickup counter with Mingyu. Wonwoo can’t remember at this moment how Junhui knows he likes sunflowers.

“So, going back to the list—I think the safest thing Jihoon would want on here, is another microphone,” Seokmin says, smoothing down the Starbucks napkin with said list scrawled in blue ballpen. The list was of potential birthday presents for Jihoon that they’d decided to half-assedly brainstorm about, when it became apparent that neither Wonwoo, Mingyu or Junhui could commit to studying.

Seokmin props his face in both hands and looks pointedly at Wonwoo. “Would you happen to know if he’d like another tattoo?”

“Why? Are you gonna hold his hand while he’s getting inked?” Wonwoo asks, vacuuming down the last frothy dregs of the whipped cream with his straw while Seokmin looks like he’s about to cry at the thought.

“I would,” Soonyoung says easily. Beside Wonwoo, Mingyu whispers _God help you_ into his grande and Junhui’s eyes bug out at his locked phone screen.

Wonwoo lets them defile the first unlined page of the planner when they pass it around to doodle on it. Junhui draws sunflowers around what’s supposed to be Wonwoo’s head.

He remembers now: Junhui holding a bouquet of sunflowers when they’d been walking back to the dorm after he’s had a recital. Junhui gets congratulatory flowers sometimes after he does shows; mostly from friends, a few times from admirers. Wonwoo had plucked one stem out so he could hold a single sunflower while they walked. He’d told Junhui that he wished it was day and not in the evening because sunflowers looked best where they should be—soaking up the sun in their cutting and infectious vibrancy.

_You deserve sunflowers, Wonwoo._

“Hyung, are you okay?” Seokmin asks.

“What?”

“Your face is red.”

Wonwoo hits Junhui in his side when he laughs at Wonwoo under his breath. Their knees keep nudging each other by accident under the table, until Wonwoo rests his leg against Junhui’s.

 

———————

 

“Stuck on something?”

Wonwoo jerks his head up. He’d been so engrossed in achieving coherence on this paper that he hadn’t seen Jihoon from his peripheral view coming up to the table. Jihoon shuffles round the table to sit opposite Wonwoo, scraping the chair back in loudly against the floor. A few people next to their table look up at the grating noise but otherwise continue working, functioning on numbing autopilot mode since finals week has started.

“What are you doing here?” Wonwoo asks, cracking his knuckles.

“Waiting until the studios open,” Jihoon croaks, his voice still rough, probably from not having spoken a single word at eight a.m, until he saw Wonwoo at the library. Jihoon grumbles something like _Seungcheol_ and _big baby_ while he’s looking at his phone. “I invited you guys to my birthday next Friday, right?” Jihoon asks, like he hasn’t sent a message in their group chat just yesterday.

“Yup.”

“So, maybe—you’ll meet a couple of our other friends,” Jihoon adds, shaking one leg under the table.

“Alright. So...?” 

“Seungcheol is friends with, uh.” Jihoon scowls at Wonwoo’s forehead like this puts him in more pain to have this conversation right now than listening to Seokmin crooning too many unnecessary adlibs as his vocal guide in a low quality audio file. And so early in the morning. “Joshua? Hong Joshua?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, tugging on his sweater sleeve. He picks a stray thread off it. “I guess you heard? About him and me?” Jihoon had only been Wonwoo’s roommate after Joshua had ended things. Wonwoo hadn’t been the most verbose about it after all either.

“Shua-hyung actually mentioned it to me when Seungcheol asked about Junhui, after Halloween. Since you know, Seungcheol worries.” Jihoon continues to flip his phone around in his hands, until it falls on the table with a clatter and thud. The girl next to their table looks up, head still in her hands and throws them a dirty look.

“We did kind of—” Wonwoo begins. _Date. Kind of._ “Not exclusive though. Not many people know.”

“Figured,” Jihoon says, one side of his mouth turned up.

“It was nearing end of freshman year when it happened,” Wonwoo says.

“Mm.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t curious.”

Jihoon only _looks_ like he could care less for listening, but to put up that front, it meant that he just got real good at eavesdropping when it came to gossip.

Jihoon crosses his arms, his hands peeking out from under his long hoodie sleeves and makes him look even smaller. “Joshua-hyung’s side of the story makes it pretty self-explanatory,” he says, barely whispering.

Wonwoo’s hand drifts to the sunflower planner next to his laptop. He pulls the elastic around it too hard, and it snaps back loudly.

They both say nothing for a few moments; Jihoon types away at his phone and Wonwoo goes back to proofreading what he’s written in the past almost-hour. But bubbling under the surface anxiety and stress of finals, after what Jihoon has said, his mind starts to drift. He realizes he has to erase all the _‘junhwi’s_ that he’s written in a few sentences here and there on his document. Fuck.

It’s only when Wonwoo looks up to see Jihoon looking at him with disinterest, that he realizes he’s sworn out loud. “Can’t finish this. I’ve been at it since five a.m. earlier at the dorm,” Wonwoo explains.

“I know what you mean,” Jihoon assures.

Because it’s Jihoon, who will file away weird personal conversations into a secret drawer and never bring it up unless his life depended on it, Wonwoo asks a question.

“Do you think I’m easy to read?”

Jihoon twists his white baseball cap in his hand and blinks at him. “Um, not really? Most of the time, no,” he answers, narrowing his eyes.

“What do you mean ‘most of the time’?” Wonwoo probes.

“I dunno. You smile when you’re happy, don’t you?And you look like you’re thinking hard about the moral implications of stabbing someone with a milk tea straw when they piss you off,” Jihoon says. He presses the home button of his phone to light it up and check for phantom notifications. “What’s this about?” He asks.

Kang Yebin apologizing at that party. Junhui saying that he had wanted to talk to Wonwoo, but hadn’t, not before he’d gotten drunk. Warm skin and rough hair against Wonwoo’s neck when he’d leaned on him, and Junhui telling him not to be sad because he was there with Wonwoo. The weight of his words held both nothing and something substantial, with the way Junhui had looked at him as he’d said it. And then, out of nowhere, a fleeting memory of Joshua and his voice, low and soothing—telling him that everything would be fine.

“Nothing,” Wonwoo shakes his head. “It’s just, lately—I’ve been...just trying to figure some things out.” Elaborating might flip over reality, and Wonwoo isn’t sure he wants that. But that was also a lie and he knows it deep down.

“Seungcheol says I’ll kill myself trying to figure out things on my own. Don’t be like me,” Jihoon says, his expression morose.

“Huh.” Wonwoo wonders if it’s too late to try doing that anyway, as bottled up as he already feels like he is. He traces the sunflower petals on the planner cover, studies the painted lines as he follows his finger. “Seungcheol-hyung says stuff like that?”

A corner of Jihoon’s lips twitches before he grimaces. “Occasionally. Shouldn’t you talk about this with Jun? Like, aren’t you guys—?” Something passes over his face when he looks at Wonwoo’s expression, and it’s like a veil has been lifted.

“Oh, you’re not,” Jihoon murmurs, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching his nose bridge. “I thought that—yeah. Sorry,” he adds quickly at the look on Wonwoo’s face.

Heat blooms in Wonwoo’s cheeks and Jihoon clears his throat. “Well, regardless. Maybe you’re better off talking to him?” He tries.

“Of course,” Wonwoo says through gritted teeth.

More people have come in, and the light clacking of laptop keys flow with susurrous conversation around them. Most nights in the past week, Wonwoo is stuck in the dorm and hunched over his dissertation, with Junhui’s quiet company. But it stopped becoming as comfortable when Wonwoo keeps thinking about a hundred and one ways to bring up that conversation on Halloween.

“Hey,” Jihoon says. “There’s this track I’m working on. Not for an assignment, just a side thing—could you give it a listen sometime when I’m done with it?”

“Sure,” Wonwoo says, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses and closing his laptop. “When’s your next gig?”

“Not anytime soon. I’m probably not going to play this one at a show,” Jihoon says.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Just need another ear, I guess.” Jihoon puts on his cap and stands up. “You coming?” He asks, glancing at Wonwoo’s closed laptop.

They walk out the library building and brace themselves against the wintry air. Wonwoo pulls his coat closer around him and wraps a scarf around himself. Snow hasn’t fallen yet. The world waits for it all the time.

Jihoon turns to Wonwoo, the hood of his puffed up jacket up over his baseball cap. “I’ll get going. I’ll send the song when I’m done with it.”

“Okay. See you, dude.”

Jihoon glances up at Wonwoo while he’s trying to untangle his earphone wires. “Don’t worry too much. I’d try not to, if I were you.”

Wonwoo wishes he had a milk tea straw now to stab Jihoon at the moment if he doesn’t get injured first in self-defense, because hell if he knows what Jihoon means.

 

———————

 

For the first time in a while, Junhui ruins his sleep schedule. For as long as Wonwoo had known Junhui, he has the superhuman ability to be awake at six to seven a.m. each morning, no matter how late he slept. Wonwoo would wake up for early classes and he’d find Junhui buried under the covers up to his chin, the tip of his nose and cheekbones illuminated by the glow of his phone.

But today, Junhui’s eyes are still closed at ten in the morning. They only flutter open slowly when Wonwoo drops a hanger by accident.

“I’m a new man now, Wonwoo,” Junhui says, yawning and burrowing himself deeper under the blanket.

Wonwoo just rolls his eyes and makes to pick up his sweater at the foot of Junhui’s bed, only to snatch his hand back from the static that pricks. He’s been sliding around in socks all morning. To put it plainly, Wonwoo is trying (and failing) not to linger. After he gets dressed, he throws a pillow at Junhui.

“If you’re not up by noon, I’m not bringing back food,” Wonwoo says, like he’s bargaining with a child.

Junhui mock gasps. “Is that how this is gonna be now? You’re a cruel person.”

Wonwoo takes out extra cold noodles anyway and after some hard thinking, vegetables. Junhui eats his container clean after he gets out of the shower.

It’s that night, when Wonwoo dreams about meeting his parents at an empty auditorium. Not any auditorium hall he’s ever been to; red plush seats and the burgundy curtain behind a lonely stage. He sees his parents, standing at the aisle near the front row seats. They pull him closer, his mom straightening his coat for him and they’re barely whispering their wishes of _eat well, please call us soon,_ and _your brother couldn’t make it today but he says he’ll miss you_. Was Wonwoo supposed to be elsewhere? He thinks he’s supposed to leave to someplace. He hears a voice calling his name, and there’s Junhui waving at him some fifty yards away on the stage, eyes shining.

Wonwoo doesn’t remember walking over to Junhui but suddenly he’s standing with him on the empty stage, close enough to reach out and take Junhui’s wrist.

“Where’s your bracelet?” Wonwoo asks when he doesn’t feel the silver around his wrist, his palm rough against the bare thin skin there. It had been Junhui’s father’s before; his dad had decided to let him have the bracelet, after Junhui had stolen it from him at a young age.

“Must have lost it along the way,” Junhui smiles, but Wonwoo realizes his eyes are wet, like he’d just stopped crying and the tears haven’t even dried yet. Wonwoo touches the delicate skin under Junhui’s eyes, salt water warm like liquid on silk.

“Sorry,” Junhui whispers, lips brushing against Wonwoo’s palm. When Junhui moves closer, pinpricks of light above are reflected around them on the wooden floor like a sea of stars. Junhui takes his hand and the stars appear behind Wonwoo’s eyelids when squeezes his eyes shut, grips Junhui’s hand tighter.

Wonwoo wakes up, breathing hard, and the stars are gone in the pale grays and dim blues of the room. He rolls over to find Junhui getting out of bed. His bare feet are silent when he moves to Wonwoo’s side and sits on the edge. The digital clock by their bedside reads 05:11, a glaring blurred red.

“Good dream or bad dream?” Junhui whispers, eyes darting around Wonwoo’s face.

Wonwoo lifts his arm to cover half his face, darkness pressing in against his eyelids. “I don’t know,” he finally whispers back.

“You were—you were saying my name,” Junhui says, fidgeting with the hem of his oversized t-shirt. Wonwoo tries to speak but he doesn’t know what to say to that. His arm acts on its own, tugs Junhui in so he lowers himself down next to Wonwoo.

“It’s so cold,” Wonwoo grumbles when Junhui’s fingers touch his arm, but he doesn’t move away, could argue that he literally couldn’t, because the bed is big enough to fit the both of them just right.

“Sorry.” He hears Junhui swallow beside him, and Wonwoo wants to ask if this is making him nervous. As if his own heart doesn’t lose steady rhythm when Junhui rests his hand on Wonwoo’s chest. But Wonwoo keeps his eyes closed and listens to the slow breathing beside him.

“I’ll wake you up in a few hours,” Junhui says softly. Wonwoo’s sleep is dreamless after that.

 

———————

 

 

The last time they’d shared a bed before was summer earlier in the same year. Junhui had barely left it. Physical therapy was supposed to help him get better and yet, Junhui was hardly sleeping the past month. His eyes were a blackhole that seemed to suck in all kinds of things when they stared up at the ceiling, and Wonwoo has had to count, how many missed calls this week Junhui had gotten a total of. Last couple of weeks had been considerably more. _Not urgent,_ Junhui reminds Wonwoo. At least he was responding to the doctor’s appointment plans. And Minghao had messaged Wonwoo that he’s somewhat alive every now and then on Weibo.

“One thing,” Junhui says suddenly, his voice crystalline thin next to the hum of the electric fan when they’re both in their beds. “If you wanted to dream about one thing a lot, what would it be?”

“Going to outer space,” Wonwoo answers. He rolls onto his stomach, restless and wiggling around. “Do you have nightmares?”

“No.” Junhui’s brows are creased and he picks at a thread in the seams of his pillowcase. “They’re not _bad_. But I can never remember them now. And I don’t get very good dreams either lately. It’s like, there’s an— absence.”

“Absence?”

Junhui worries his bottom lip. “I don’t know—empty. I’m not making sense,” he says, pushing his face into his pillow. “Can I sleep next to you?”

Wonwoo lifts his head to stare at him. “I don’t think you’ll get good dreams that way,” he jokes, even if there’s blood rushing to his ears. His back is pressed lightly against the cool wall next to his own bed moments later anyway, after he makes way for Junhui to crawl in. The frame creaks under the weight of them trying to adjust. Junhui almost never sleeps with a shirt on in the summer. Shadows travel along his bare shoulders and back, the color of sand dunes against tough outlines, until they disappear when Wonwoo tells him to turn off the light.

“Not a hugger in this heat,” Junhui reassures him, half-smiling. He falls asleep before Wonwoo does, an arm around the tiny throw pillow in between them.

 

———————

 

By the time Friday rolls around after finals in November, Joshua meets him halfway by saying what Wonwoo has thought about in his head, when they run into each other. Run into each other isn’t the correct phrase because it wasn’t like they could avoid each other since the guest list wasn’t very extensive.

“Not cleaning up all of everyone’s shit the next day,” Jihoon explains into the fridge, digging around for mayonnaise dip before he’s barreled by Soonyoung and Junhui into the fridge door.

“Happy birthday again, Hoonie!” Soonyoung warbles over Jihoon’s shriek when Junhui lifts him up a solid three feet into the air.

All of this happens when Joshua comes up to him just outside the kitchen area and asks to talk to Wonwoo in the small hallway.

“We don’t have to be friends,” he starts, pulling at his jacket zipper, one of his unconscious nervous tics. “But I don’t want us to ignore each other.”

Wonwoo tries, helplessly, to stop the smile from breaking through. “Then that makes us kind of friends, right?”

Joshua breathes out and the tension line leaves his body. He takes a deep breath, and Wonwoo can guess that he’s got a whole speech prepared. When there’s resolve ignited within him, Joshua kind of looks like he might scream everything he wants to say.

“It’s okay,” Wonwoo shrugs, even though his shoulders feel so fucking stiff now. “I kind of knew. That it’d turn out that way, and yet, I let it happen.” The churning in his stomach goes up notch.

Joshua’s brows crease and he looks down. “You hoped things would turn out better. You did nothing wrong with hoping.” His voice falters at the end.

"But I put that on you." Wonwoo thinks so hard about this for a few seconds, that he forgets to breathe normally. Everything he wants to say sounds like it might come out horribly wrong from his mouth. So he settles on, “I really just hope you’re doing okay.”

Joshua’s eyes crinkle, even though he doesn’t smile fully. “Same to you.”

And then Seungcheol’s shouting something about pizza and ice cream cake, and Soonyoung meets Wonwoo's eyes with an alarmed expression when he passes by the hallway. Wonwoo just nods at him. Joshua looks toward the commotion forming the food as they prepare to sing for Jihoon. “Never really liked ice cream cake that much,” he says thoughtfully.

“How dare you,” Wonwoo scoffs.

Joshua didn’t come here alone; Wonwoo catches him later on looking at someone he’s talking to, the way one might look at their world when it stops turning for a bit, just for them. He doesn’t think Joshua had ever looked at him like that. It knocks the air out of his chest because Wonwoo knows for sure now and he always had at some point.

Beside him on the floor, Junhui wraps an arm around his. He declared Wonwoo his favorite person last year, when Wonwoo learned how to say _Junhui is awesome_ in Mandarin through Junhui’s teaching. He'd also said it when they’d gone to the Lotte World Aquarium in early spring, because Junhui had never gotten a chance to really enjoy it throughout his years in Seoul.

The air is tepid, and the laughter in the background is almost dizzying. _Don’t be like me,_ Jihoon had said.

Wonwoo tugs Junhui’s hand to get his attention away from Seungcheol, Mingyu and Seokmin debating about the science of foodplay (“There’s more technical stuff to food so it is therefore _science_ with our biology,” Mingyu insists, wringing his hands while Seokmin turns to Seungcheol with: "Biology or exposure to porn?").

“What if someone who was afraid of heights runs to the edge of a cliff to save you, if you were hanging off it?”

“Uh, both of us could die. It’s like jumping into an ocean to save someone who’s drowning when you can’t swim. Or hates the water.” Junhui looks away then grins at him. “Would you save me?”

“No.” It’s like responding with a reflex built in but then he deliberates. “Maybe,” he says so quietly that Junhui has to lean in. He smiles gleefully. Wonwoo can’t tell what’s he more irritated at—how loud his pulse is in his ears or at how Junhui keeps his hand on Wonwoo’s back, burning through the two layers of fabric.

“Best thing I’ve heard yet,” Junhui quips.

“Yeah? I’d be brave for you, Junhui.” 

It wipes the smile off of Junhui’s face; he looks dumbfounded. "That's the cheesiest line ever. It hurts me," Junhui chokes out, and it would have been funny, except Junhui slides his hand down Wonwoo’s back to his waist, and digs his nails into where Wonwoo is ticklish.

 

———————

 

“Did you mean what you said?” Junhui asks softly when they return back.

Wonwoo is preoccupied with cleaning a glass first before using it. "What?"

"When you said you'd be brave for me."

Wonwoo drapes his coat carefully on a chair, his back towards Junhui. “I did.” 

“So tell me.”

Wonwoo sees it; the rest of the night falling away from that one thing Wonwoo had said at Jihoon’s. It reflects itself in Junhui’s eyes, polarizing and sharp. He's not choking out words anymore, not flustered. Junhui sits on his bed, and his hands grip the edge, wrinkling the sheets. His face is tinged orange and flushed in the glow of the lamp and the fading buzz from the soju earlier. “Being brave. What do you want to do?”

Wonwoo wipes his palms on his jeans after he yanks off his scarf. 

“I dream about you sometimes.” He waits but Junhui just watches him earnestly, rapt with attention.

"So they're bad ones, then?" He finally asks. People tend to remember their nightmares.

"Not all the time. But I keep wanting you to be there when I wake." He watches Junhui twist his fingers silently. "I think I’d regret not telling you that and you leave.” The weird feeling settles deep within, molten in his ribcage now that he’s said it out loud.

The pause that comes after lasts way too long as Junhui looks down at his hand, the one clutching his knee. The minutes of the bedside clock don’t seem to move either, and they’re stuck at 00:14.

“I’m here, aren’t I? Like I told you before,” Junhui says.

“Yeah. You remember? On Halloween?”

Junhui makes a pained face. “I drank a lot but not enough,” Junhui laughs hoarsely, pulling off his socks. He chucks them at the hamper, and one of them misses. “I don’t think you know how hard it is for people to forget you, Wonwoo,” he says, looking up at Wonwoo after he picks it off the floor.

Wonwoo could play it off easy and bounce off of that with a joke. Say something dismissive. But that wouldn’t be fair. “So I don’t want you to forget,” he replies.

Junhui exhales shakily, like he’s been holding out for something he’s waited for a long time. He steps toward Wonwoo. When he holds Wonwoo by his shoulders, gently, Wonwoo in turn, clutches at Junhui’s elbows like a lifeline. He breathes in sharp when Junhui’s lips touch his cheek, so close to the corner of his mouth.

Junhui’s face is tinted an even warmer color. “Is this okay—“ He starts to say before Wonwoo kisses him full on the mouth. He meant for it to be quick, but Junhui keeps him there, a hand on his neck. It’s the quietest kiss he's ever had with anyone. Wonwoo doesn’t realize how tightly his eyes are screwed shut until he pulls away and opens them.

“Congrats,” Junhui speaks softly against the curve between Wonwoo’s shoulder and his neck. Wonwoo shivers, but it’s warmth that seeps through his body down to his legs. “You win a bravery medal.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [shrieks into my hands] i don't know how to write anymore now.  
> edit: if anyone who's ever read this chapter before notices anything slightly different in dialogue, i've made very minor edits in one part. nothing that changes the plot, just really small things that that i felt weren't necessary to put in writing anymore.


	6. i'm glad as hell that happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a lot of weighing risks, until you get tired of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't updated this fic in five months. am clearly baffled that i've managed to have written 5 chapters. icb i can still keep writing but don't worry, i'm willing to see this story through let's all hold hands and try to enjoy this

 

This isn’t really quite what Wonwoo expected to feel after how last night went. He thought it’d be fine, like plummeting down off some figurative cliff like he’d rambled to Junhui some nonsense about being afraid of water and drowning, who’d went along with the notion. Before he’d kissed him and he thought it’d be fine saying things he doesn’t want to regret.

“But you don’t regret saying these things?” Seokmin is saying, lines furrowed in his forehead from how his face has been twisted in concern over the past thirty minutes. Beside Seokmin, Jihoon’s face stays passive, sipping cheap black coffee and sitting on the outdoor seats of the tiny convenience store they’ve decided to take up.

Wonwoo anxiously picks at a splinter on the corner of the table and grumbles “Well _now_ I’m starting to.”

He woke up the next morning, with Junhui having left first. _Gone_ is what his head supplies him with but Junhui is always leaving first in the mornings when he’s fast asleep. There was nothing blatantly different, not in the note stuck near the kettle that told Wonwoo there was still hot water left if he wanted tea or something, not in the way there are clothes scattered over Junhui’s bed, a towel hanging off the edge and how their shoes are habitually neatly straightened out by the door.

“How does he leave so early all the time?” Jihoon had asked, his tone annoyed and sidetracked already. Wonwoo wouldn’t have told anyone anything so soon, really. But the kiss last night was good enough that they’d continued, open-mouthed and more eager until Junhui had stopped and asked the question that presented itself at the back of Wonwoo’s head, like he’d read his mind: “What happens after?”

They’d stumbled backwards towards one of the beds, Junhui’s arms holding himself up so he isn’t pressed on top of Wonwoo, giving Wonwoo a chance to push him off and not cage him in. His hands had been frozen on Junhui’s shoulders, and honestly he can’t remember now if he’d actually pushed him off gently.

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo had whispered after some time, and there was the sharp twinge of liquor in his mouth along with guilt lined along his teeth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d actually—I don’t know.” He remembers that his body seemed to just get heavier, even when Junhui rolls onto his side so that he isn’t over Wonwoo anymore.

“I’ve liked you for so long,” Junhui said, sounding apologetic, which confused Wonwoo even more. “But when I played it out in my head, it was different.”

Junhui had his eyes closed, breathing in slow and calm like he’d already been asleep when Wonwoo turned to him to ask, and the alcohol must have sunken bone-deep in him as well with his head stuffed with cotton because he’d fallen asleep soon after he’d heard Junhui telling him to sleep and a shuffling off his bed.

Even now, when Wonwoo grinds his teeth and refuses the coffee that Jihoon so graciously offers him, the guilt sits heavy in his mouth and makes him swallow.

“I couldn’t even answer him,” Wonwoo says, curling his cold fingers tighter in the pockets of his parka.

Seokmin opens his mouth but stops himself, pressing his lips into a thin line.

“Just say it.” Wonwoo nudges him.

I don’t think either of you expected to act on feelings. You know how Jun-hyung can be.” Seokmin glances at Wonwoo and continues, “You never really told him you wanted to be with him. Like date or anything.”

The wind picks up and nips at Wonwoo’s ears, and this time he drinks out of Jihoon’s coffee cup when he holds it out to Wonwoo again.

“As long as you both talk. Seriously. Like just get it over with before Junhui kicks himself out of his own room y’know?” Jihoon tells him, aiming at one of the trash bins next to the door with one eye closed. He misses; the coffee cup falls behind the bin and Jihoon curses.

 

———————

 

“Hi, Jun-ah,” Wonwoo says after Junhui picks up on the fifth ring on the phone.

“Hi,” Junhui responds, breathing harried and there’s a clattering sound and other voices calling out to each other in the background. He’s definitely at the theater again.

“Could we have dinner tonight?” Wonwoo asks, flinching at how this sounds and wondering if he should have just texted the question instead, like they always do.

“What’s the occasion?”

Wonwoo almost trips over a large crack in the sidewalk as he’s walking back towards university grounds. He’d spent some time holed up in a pc bang with Jihoon before they’d gotten late lunch together and his hands are cold again as he grips his phone tighter. “Uh—” A peace offering? What peace offering—no one’s mad or offended. He hopes to God no one is. Confrontation didn’t sound like the right word either. He really should have just texted, but the thought of being put on read at a time like this sounded worse.

“You never had to ask me before through a phone call, unless you wanted to drag me to someone’s birthday or something other,” Junhui explains but his voice is lighter now.

“I just— want to eat dinner. With company.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And—can we also talk about things?”

Wonwoo holds his breath while Junhui responds softly with an _ah_ on the other end.

“Sure,” Junhui says, his voice still quiet.

It reminds Wonwoo of Junhui being disappointed when they stopped selling strawberry cheesecake at one of the cafeterias, or when Wonwoo was in a sick fever haze trying to bat Junhui’s hand away when he tried to coax Wonwoo into eating something. On the night during the summer when he found Joshua slumped in a bathtub at that party, is when Wonwoo honestly thinks that even if he hadn’t been living with Junhui—if somehow they still met through mutual friends—he would have still been there leaning outside Mingyu’s van where Wonwoo was sprawled inside, head still swimming. They were in the parking lot a few blocks away from the apartment.

“Are you hungry?” Junhui had prodded Wonwoo with his finger. “There a 7-11 here somewhere.” At the store, they’d sat next to each other eating instant ramen and store-bought jjigae. Wonwoo felt something small in his ribs has collapsed in on itself again but it seemed less to do with the talk with Joshua and more with the actual moment then, with Junhui. There’d been _something_.

It also reminds Wonwoo of when they’d somehow had that conversation way before, after Wonwoo had unlocked his own phone for Junhui to borrow because Junhui’s had died this one time when they all missed the last bus after noraebang, and the screen revealed Joshua’s Instagram on a photo dated almost a year back. Wonwoo, voice raspy from singing IU and tongue still loose from soju, had croakily tried to explain himself and Junhui had said, after listening to the story, “Yeah I get it.” His voice had been soft too when he continued “My mom and stepdad—they know. But I’m not out to my real dad. I don’t really know why I haven’t told him yet, or if I need to. We weren’t always on good terms, you know. So like, why complicate things again? I get it,” Junhui had said, his face unreadable when he looked sideways at Wonwoo before their cab came.

Why would anyone want to complicate things again?

“Wonwoo?” Junhui prods tentatively on the other end of the line, making Wonwoo jolt. “I said sure, and I’ll see you later?”

“Right. Yeah—yeah cool, see you,” Wonwoo replies and stuffs his phone in his pocket, his hand numb. It’s the first day of snow, flakes falling over the streets gently, silently, ever since he emerged from the pc bang earlier.  

Wonwoo thinks he’s gotten good at guessing how Junhui is feeling through his voice, but this time he can’t tell at all.

 

———————

 

“So you remember everything you said?” Junhui asks, his fingers tapping the rim of his glass of this hazelnut latte with fancy shredded chocolate toppings this coffee shop is promoting on its menu. He looks up at Wonwoo furtively and Wonwoo keeps one of his hands locked under his thigh, so Junhui’s nervousness doesn’t get to him. Wonwoo hasn’t been able to stomach the carbonara that Junhui had offered him to try earlier, especially how slightly stilted their small talk got at some point over dinner.

“I remember enough to want to talk to you about it,” Wonwoo says, feeling his hand grow numb under his thigh so he takes to stirring his drink instead. “You asked a question that I couldn’t really answer, so I thought I should explain it to you better.” He continues when Junhui nods, eyes wide and his fingers still around his glass.

“I like you. But I never thought anything would actually happen and at one point, I was okay with anything not really happening, until I thought that you—might have felt the same.” Wonwoo senses the needle-like creeping feeling over his shoulders and resists the urge to look around. They’re in a coffee shop far enough from university so it isn’t bustling with people, but still. He resists the urge anyway and watches the surprise grow more evident on Junhui’s face. The coffee shop has warm, yellow lights so he can’t tell if Junhui’s neck and cheeks are a shade darker or if he’s just imagining things.

“I thought about what you asked and—I can’t answer about what happens after because I don’t know what you want and I don’t want to put you through things you can’t do,” Wonwoo says, not feeling as steady inside as his voice manages to come across.

Junhui leans forward, frowning. “What I want?”

“What did you mean when you said you pictured things different in your head?”

Junhui inhales sharply and Wonwoo suddenly wishes they were having this conversation in the privacy of their dorm room. The tiny laugh he lets out is more an incredulous chuckle. “It’s not as different as I’d thought,” he says, twisting his fingers together on the table. “In my head, I thought we’d be better off as friends, and I really didn’t expect anything to happen as well.” Junhui chews on his bottom lip, and Wonwoo blinks away the memory of Junhui’s hands on either side of his face, mouth hot against his own when Junhui speaks again: “Wonu, do you think we’d be better off as friends?”

If the awkwardness had been palpable before now there’s a lot of unspoken doubt hanging in the air. Junhui’s gaze is searching and Wonwoo realizes that it’s because he has his guard up too. Despite what had happened, how honest Wonwoo had been, he’s wondering now if he can save himself from falling down that figurative cliff because they’re already _really_ good as friends.

“I prefer not to think about that,” Wonwoo says, despite it being a partial lie. He’s thought about them being better off as friends a lot. “I mean, would have never confessed if I kept thinking that.”

“Really?”

“What about you?”

Junhui flinches a little. “You’re one of my good friends,” he says, trying to laugh.

In spite of the total mess his insides are becoming, Wonwoo feels a prick of annoyance and it rises in his chest.

“Jun,” Wonwoo says, his voice cracking and he takes a huge audible gulp of his now lukewarm Americano. “It’s okay to say you don’t want this.” _Or that you can’t do this,_ he thinks.

Junhui’s face hardens and he says “Said you didn’t even know what _I_ wanted” calmly, quietly, that it’s not a retort but it’s enough to bring about a fresh wave of guilt that crashes like a turbulent sea that rises up Wonwoo’s throat. Maybe Wonwoo isn’t ready to do this again, and Junhui obviously had his reasons for thinking they’d be better off as friends. Why complicate things?

“I’m sorry if I pushed you away even after I said those things or—or made it seem like I regret the things I said,” Wonwoo says, doing his best to maintain eye contact.

“But you didn’t mean to?” Junhui asks, gaze softening and Wonwoo shakes his head.

They decide to leave, before it starts snowing again and outside on the streets they fall into step as easily as they always do. When Junhui keeps walking forward past Wonwoo, he looks round, a little alarmed when he realizes Wonwoo had fallen behind a large group of high school boys, and lets him catch up.

“Junnie, wait for me,” Wonwoo says, Junhui raises his eyebrows at him, shoulders nudging as he stays close. It’s easy, almost a comfort.

“You didn’t really have to apologize,” Junhui tells him suddenly. “I think I was too scared after to really feel hurt.”

Wonwoo thinks about this and asks “You didn’t really have to do anything at the theater today, did you?”

“Oh no, I did,” Junhui says, waving his hand around. “I just—didn’t have to leave that early,” he admits, ducking his head.

“Amazing,” Wonwoo deadpans.

Junhui glances at him. “Are you mad?”

“No. I’m just surprised you haven’t filed in a request to switch rooms,” Wonwoo says, and smiles when Junhui shoves at his shoulder lightly. The tension line Junhui’s had ever since dinner loosens a little, and it feels easy and familiar again. Then Wonwoo realizes that they’re already at the bus stop, and they’re going to go home. They’re going to go home and it’ll probably be awkward again. Probably.

“Jun-ah, did you—” Wonwoo starts to ask before the courage fails him again, and a group of aunties gossiping reach the bus stop too and announce their loud farewells in front of them.

Junhui shuffles in behind Wonwoo when the door to their dorm room beeps open, almost tripping over his own feet as they slip out of their shoes and Wonwoo is suddenly aware of every brush of movement Junhui makes against his back. He’s aware of the _space_ that surrounds Junhui, and goddamn if he isn’t starting to hate the trepidation that comes with it until he realizes that Junhui lingers by the wall and shelf separating their beds and the bathroom.

“Is there something you wanted to ask me?” Junhui says, unzipping his hoodie and hanging it on the already-full clothes rack.

“Was there?” Wonwoo’s distracted immediately when he dumps his own hoodie onto his bed. The mess and folds of the dark blue covers and duvet he hadn’t bothered to make this morning dwarfs his mustard yellow hoodie. Can he let Junhui crawl into his bed ever again?

Behind him in his periphery, Junhui is peeling off his layers of clothes one by one down to the white thin t-shirt after the black sweater comes off. It sets Wonwoo on edge and somehow jolts his memory again.

“Did you want what happened last night?”

Junhui is halfway through taking off his socks when he freezes, like a deer caught in the headlights as he looks up at Wonwoo.

“I did,” Junhui says and now there’s no warm cozy yellow lighting, but the one main white fluorescent light overhead in the room to expose the dark blush that creeps from Junhui’s neck up to the apple of his cheeks.

“You never really told me about what you want,” Wonwoo says.

“Maybe it’s because I never really know how to ask,” Junhui murmurs, smiling half-heartedly.

Of course, it’s Moon Jun— no, Wen Junhui, who’d ask Wonwoo to try a lot of things, persuade him into doing favors for him, vouch for attention like a kid with a wide gummy grin and teeth gleaming. It caught Wonwoo by surprise, who didn’t really know how to respond to any outward show of affection that isn’t Soonyoung insulting him or laughing at Seokmin doing his many skilled and very loud impressions to cheer him up, or accepting to get treated to dinner by Jihoon.

“You could ask,” Wonwoo tells him, and his feet bring him forward a few steps in front of Junhui. “You could ask me,” he repeats again, his throat tight and he’s hopeful now when Junhui’s eyes are brighter as he reaches out for Wonwoo’s hand.

“Can I do this?” Junhui asks quietly, and Wonwoo nods. Lets Junhui wrap a careful hand around his wrist, curls his own fingers so he’s holding Junhui’s hand.

When Junhui stands up so he’s eye level with Wonwoo, it’s like an automatic reflex; Wonwoo steps forward close enough that he can hear Junhui’s breath hitch.

“What about this?” Junhui says and at this point, he doesn’t even have to ask anymore but Wonwoo nods and he’s letting Junhui take again, slowly, gently when he leans forward for Junhui to kiss him again.

He lets Wonwoo take from him too, mouth parting open, and it’s still gentle, testing waters until Junhui makes a noise that kind of sounds like relief and want combined. And then Wonwoo’s kissing him deeper, pressing a hand in between Junhui’s shoulder blades until Junhui’s moving backwards and Wonwoo somehow has Junhui underneath him on the bed, knees on either side of his hips.

“I really really like you,” Junhui says, the words coming out in a rush.

Wonwoo feels his own lips turn upwards, heart pounding in his chest, just barely pulls away to say “I know.”

“I’m still scared, you know,” Junhui confesses, keeping his eyes on his hands gripping Wonwoo’s shoulders. “Didn’t want to be too hopeful because it was you, and it could have been anyone else you wanted.”

Wonwoo’s doused with strange disbelief at this, and he leans back, regards Junhui who looks up with him with wide eyes and still shiny lips from all the kissing. Wonwoo sighs and moves off of Junhui awkwardly, allowing Junhui to sit up, propped up on one elbow so they’re almost eye level.

“I don’t like you just because it’s convenient and that you’re always here for me,” Wonwoo says, loud and clear, intent on getting his point across.

Junhui blinks once. “Oh. You’re awfully blunt,” he notes. “I should learn from you.”

Wonwoo snorts, and pokes Junhui’s side so he jerks away. “So I’ve been told. And you just like deflecting.”

“Sorry.” Junhui pauses. “Can we start over? I think last night ended up confusing us both,” he says.

“Start over?” Wonwoo repeats, not understanding.

Junhui ducks his head and scrunches his eyes shut, clearly struggling with the words in his head. “Can I kiss you again?”

Junhui is nervous again, like he’s afraid Wonwoo will say no, but there’s no mistaking the hope in his voice and that’s where Wonwoo knows they’re on the same page.

He responds by pulling him closer with a hand fisted in Junhui’s shirt, presses his lips firm against Junhui’s. There’s no faint dryness in their mouths and no fuzzy warmth in their bodies from the liquor like the night before, and Wonwoo thinks Junhui might feel his pulse beating fast when he runs a thumb along the pulse point under his jaw. But it’s a welcome rush in his veins, strong steady waves rolling in, and now Wonwoo feels that there’s a chance at a life he wants. For the first time in a long time, he feels hopeful too.

 

———————

 

“Seokmin, you’re blinding me,” Wonwoo whines, bringing up a hand to shield his view of Seokmin’s one-million watt grin. Wonwoo doesn’t know how he’d ended up treating Seokmin with sweet potato-filled bungeoppang since Seokmin already has had two in the morning from Jaehyun.

“I’m doing the world some favors,” Seomin says, glancing up at the grey clouds hiding the sun.

Wonwoo looks back at the stall, the steam rising out of the fish-shaped dough and he buys one more. “For Soonyoung,” Wonwoo mutters. Seokmin’s smile dims a bit and Wonwoo runs a hand over his face in place of pinching the crease between his brows in exasperation. “Soonyoung isn’t actually mad that you got back together with Jaehyun,” Wonwoo reminds him. Again.

“I know,” Seokmin replies, keeping his tone nonchalant as they start walking back to the dorm building. “But uh, when you guys were in high school, did Soonyoung start acting like a guard dog around you in front of your ex?”

“No,” Wonwoo says, then adds when he recalls “But that was also because I think I wasn’t all too cut up over it.”

Jaehyun makes it an unspoken point to stay a safe distance with a composed polite smile plastered onto his face every time they see each other now. His friends, specifically Mark Lee the freshman, tries and fails not to make shifty eye contact with Soonyoung behind Jaehyun and looks incredibly relieved to be parting ways when Jaehyun separates with Seokmin on their dates.

“If Jaehyun was still going back to America for good, would you have still hooked up with him on Halloween?” Wonwoo asks out of burning curiosity in the midst of Seokmin stuffing all of what’s left of the bungeoppang in his mouth.

Seokmin coughs and swallows, his eyes glossy, and chokes out “Yes!”

“Ah, beautiful,” Wonwoo says, mock wiping an invisible tear while Seokmin pats his own chest.

The winter break was officially due. It’s been almost a month ever since Jihoon’s birthday gathering, after things had changed. Christmas was going to pass by in a blink of an eye. It’s the following weeks after New Year’s that would slow time down considerably.

There’s a hulking mountain of clothes which Wonwoo tries to push aside on Soonyoung’s bed so he can sit when he visits Soonyoung’s room after Seokmin runs off. Wonwoo gives up and sits on the floor when Soonyoung grumbles at a pile of unrolled socks tumbling off the bed as a result.

“You know, Junhui hasn’t stopped with his streak of bad jokes. It’s been a whole week. This is entirely your fault,” Soonyoung complains, as he rolls up a pair of socks. Despite the constant clutter in his dorm room (a pigsty in its current state), he’s starkly methodical and neat when it comes to his packing. The contradiction makes Wonwoo grind his teeth on some days and maybe later he’ll leave the room with a parting chokehold around Soonyoung’s throat.

“He’s happy he managed to get a flight ticket last minute to China.”

“Uh huh,” Soonyoung says pleasantly, only looking up and snorting when Wonwoo doesn’t say any more.

It’s when Wonwoo tells him the bungeoppang is from Seokmin, that Soonyoung starts choking on it halfway through eating.

“You don’t have to look like you wish Jung Jaehyun would get taken out with a sniper every time you see him,” Wonwoo says sagely, just because now might be an alright time to see Soonyoung struggle more from chewing.

“I’m not Jihoon,” Soonyoung says, after he finally swallows his food.

“You’re right, Jihoon can actually be more discreet even if he really didn’t like the guy,” Wonwoo says, sinking down lower on the floor and shifting into a more comfortable position.

“Look, Seokmin has always been optimistic right? It’s great, it’s not Seokmin without optimism, and it’s definitely not Seokmin without hope. And love? He’s got that injected into his veins now and putting him on a nice cloud again. Clouds fucking rain,” Soonyoung explains, then flinches at his own words. Wonwoo keeps the thought to himself because they both know what Soonyoung’s thinking: that he and Seokmin aren’t that much different from each other in that sense, considering that Soonyoung’s first real heartbreak was from a girl who’d left to Europe—specifically Malta. 17-year-old Soonyoung had tried to find it on the Europe map of his geography textbook in high school, gave up, while Wonwoo Naver-searched it on the floor of Soonyoung’s old bedroom to find out that it was a country, not a city, like they’d always assumed when they first heard of it.

“That was poetic,” Wonwoo comments instead. “Is that what you think of me and…” Wonwoo trails off, his jaw setting as he narrows his eyes at Soonyoung.

“Oh man, no,” Soonyoung says, grimacing. “You seem smarter than both Seokmin and I combined.”

“Thought you said I was too _emotionally restrained_ for my own good,” Wonwoo drawls, finding satisfaction in stretching a sock and hitting Soonyoung with it while Wonwoo uses his foot to keep Soonyoung a safe distance away from any attempts to grapple him on the floor like the fifteen-year-olds they were before.

Soonyoung still manages to yank the sock out of his grip. “Yeah yeah whatever. Smart and emotionally restrained sound interchangeable, depending on the context. I still can’t believe it took you this long to do anything with a guy you’ve been living with for over a year. Like what the fuck even _are_ you both?”

 

———————

 

Emotionally restrained could be traced back to Wonwoo’s breakup with Kim Minkyung in his last year of high school.

Wonwoo had passed finals each year ranked among the top five in his class. Kim Minkyung always managed to beat him by scoring a few marks higher so everyone had thought it was completely fitting and right, that they’d ended up dating in the last year of high school. Minkyung obviously agreed with the sentiment that they suited each other, but she was smart enough to know that it wasn’t really love.

“First love?” Minkyung had repeated after Wonwoo asked her a question in a coffee shop, pushing her latte aside and laughing a little. “I thought it was love when someone kissed me on the cheek after a movie in eighth grade. Then I woke up the next day not knowing how to act in front of him at school. I remember really hating myself for that,” she said, resting her chin in her hand.

The first time Wonwoo and her kissed in a park, and even a while later where she’d let him slot his hands in her back jeans pockets as she kissed him slow in her empty living room, Minkyung had still at least been herself in front of him. And likewise the other way around, so it’d been nice. It was nice to want and feel wanted even just through linking hands as they walked home from school, and that was mostly why they’d been able to keep seeing each other for close to a year.

“Jesus, that’s...cold. And just like that?” Soonyoung had said when Wonwoo told him he and Minkyung had ended things. “But, what if you both tried harder?” Soonyoung had asked tentatively.

Wonwoo didn’t really think about _what if’s_ . Their destination had slowly turned into nowhere. The breakup felt like pulling over at a pitstop for someone to hop off; all that was left to do was check on the car, get their bearings together and be on your way. It was calm—hollowing enough to still hurt like a dull blade carving something out of him, but not heavy enough that they make small talk after the graduation ceremony. She’d cut her hair short like she’d sometimes thought about when they were together and Wonwoo was glad she finally did. Next to her bouquet of flowers, she outshone them, had always been more radiant. _One day, we’ll both get what we want, right? Good luck, Wonwoo,_ she’d told him, smiling full and sweet, and Wonwoo had wished her luck too, before she waved goodbye and hurried over to her parents in her graduation gown.

Wonwoo wants, or wanted, a lot of things if he’s being honest.

He’s wanted to break up with Minkyung several times prior to the argument over the phone that led to them ending things after Chuseok that year.

If they hadn’t been arguing as much over petty things, if neither of them had figured out how bored of each other they already were, maybe things would have been different. Maybe the breakup would have been ugly, like a bad storm instead of a gloomy drizzle, and Wonwoo would have wallowed longer in the bitter post-breakup aftermath because then he’d have felt more.

And then he wanted to know if Joshua had tasted the same things Minkyung did when he’d kissed Wonwoo drunk for the first time in someone else’s bathroom. Hoped it had been different, because at one point, Wonwoo thought he might have been in love with Joshua. Joshua was hushed laughter, calm words, embarrassingly messy kisses. He was perfect kindness from a stranger you were drawn to, a lot of dancing around each others’ toes, loosely held hands and short bouts of radio silence that Wonwoo was usually on the receiving end of but didn’t really have the courage to speak against.

Wanting something different than what they’ve always known changes some things for people. Wanting the masculine cut of a hard jawline, with a sharp Adam’s apple and sharper collarbones he found just as pretty, petered out to the slenderness that came with leaner planes of muscle. Wanting hands that weren’t soft but dry with even rougher fingertips—actually wanting those changed some things.

Still, as far and as crude as definitions of love went, Wonwoo felt alive then with Joshua. That was probably the best way to describe it.

 

———————

 

In the year and a half of their friendship, time spent not having gone home on holidays excluding Seollal, Chuseok or Christmas because the KTX had been too costly to take back to Changwon, were spent getting dragged out by Junhui to go to places as mundane as the local farmers market or as nostalgic as the arcade, so Wonwoo wouldn’t end up falling asleep and regretting too many wasted days. Wonwoo had let his life settle into a pattern drawn unknowingly by Junhui, who seems to still not realize he could take so much if he just asks, Wonwoo having been pulled into him like an orbit around a star.

It’s been almost a month, and Wonwoo is still trying to adjust to the change—where he’s actually allowed to kiss Junhui’s brow and the full high slope of his cheekbones when he grins. Where Junhui adds a soft kiss sometimes to his shoulder when he now hugs Wonwoo from behind in the privacy of their room. Or where Junhui nudges his foot against his under tables when they eat meals out, and where he holds onto Wonwoo’s wrist for considerably longer periods at the supermarket when they’re sweeping by the aisles for a quick grocery run. There’s new meaning behind the little things and Wonwoo lets himself enjoy it, less of feeling like he could drown inside that little ocean in his head, but letting himself get swept with a different current strong enough to keep him afloat.

The current shifts when Bohyuk starts to call more often (“Hyung, you have no right to be annoyed at me being too lazy to text everything. My own girlfriend has learned,” Bohyuk had said on the phone, clearly unfazed) to plan where and exactly to meet Wonwoo so they could take the train together back to Changwon for the winter break.

Wonwoo is curled up in bed, firing off a text to his mother about their commuting plans, when Junhui tells him from his place on the floor in the midst of packing his things into a big carrier: “My mom wishes you an early merry christmas to you, by the way.”

“Merry Christmas, Junhui’s mom,” Wonwoo calls from his cocoon of a duvet.

Junhui throws him a glance over his shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be packing too?”

“I can’t multitask,” Wonwoo says simply, lifting his phone up. “I _refuse_ to multitask today.”

Junhui’s mouth twitches into a smile. “I’ll miss you over the break,” Junhui says, his voice sing-song, preoccupied with separating clothes to put in the hamper and clothes to fold into the carrier.

“Trying to get me to pack that way? It’s not working,” Wonwoo says flatly.

But he lowers his phone and thinks about what this means. They don’t have a label on what this is. Their friends say they’re dating, and it isn’t wrong but—it’s not a relationship. Wonwoo’s mind drifts to Bohyuk and his girlfriend. How she might actually come over to finally meet their parents. Soonyoung would drop by and visit every so often when they were both free and his parents wouldn’t bat an eye. It’s always been known in the Jeon household that any friend of their sons is more than welcome in their home. Lately, Wonwoo has started to really wonder about that.

“I could talk to you over the break,” Wonwoo says, watching the slow way Junhui looks round at him funny.

“There’s no Line or KakaoTalk in China,” Junhui reminds him.

“And it isn’t like I can’t use WeChat,” Wonwoo counters, enjoying the way Junhui sputters.

“I mean, it’d be nice. But not like—Don’t do it if you feel obliged to!” Junhui rambles, and Wonwoo tries not to focus on how cute he finds this.

“I won’t do things I don’t want to do, you know me,” Wonwoo tells him, flinging off the duvet so he can get out of bed and pad over to sit next to Junhui. The pair of pants Junhui’s been holding gets dropped into the luggage when Wonwoo takes Junhui’s face into his hands and kisses him once, twice. They don’t pull away quickly enough on the third kiss for it to stay gentle or chaste.

Junhui places his hands on Wonwoo’s thighs, keeping him anchored there as he licks into Wonwoo’s mouth. It’s gotten like this sometimes, where the heat Wonwoo’s been trying so long not to let himself get swept under, is heady, like steady flames getting stoked from firm hands and even firmer limbs moving underneath him. There’s this voice that horribly sounds like Soonyoung chanting _emotionally restrained, emotionally restrained_ at the back of his brain. It’s not so much restrained as it is frustrated. It’s usually when Junhui does this thing where he sighs into Wonwoo’s mouth, and gasps when he drags his lips and tongue under Junhui’s jaw that really tests Wonwoo, makes the haze of want thicker under his skin.

He goes back to Junhui’s mouth with their chests are flush against each other. It isn’t messy and hurried; not trying to take as much as they can get like it sometimes had been with Joshua. Junhui kisses like he wants to enjoy it—no sense of desperate urgency behind it. He kisses like he wants to properly learn how Wonwoo likes to be kissed.

Junhui figured out the right push and pull, the perfect way to graze his teeth just barely over Wonwoo’s bottom lip to make him want more. It isn’t fair. It turns him on, really; strong wiry muscle moving, sharp angles, sharp eyes, the heat and roughness of Junhui’s mouth when he starts to get into the kiss but undulates back to gentle touches around Wonwoo’s shoulders and neck, soft lips, pliant movement. It drives Wonwoo up the wall. He is so turned on, and it occurs to him that he’s only wearing sweats and Junhui can feel it. Wonwoo has practically pulled him onto his lap, and he almost chokes when he realizes Junhui is just as hard.

“We might have to talk about that soon,” Wonwoo breathes when Junhui shifts, and Wonwoo feels the throb in his pants.

Junhui groans into Wonwoo’s neck. “This is all your fault,” he laughs weakly, eyes glittering and so so dark, until his expression turns a bit more serious. “This is fine with me. You can say when you want to stop though.”

Wonwoo’s not exactly sure if he wants to stop, but he loosens his hold on Junhui’s waist. Lets himself catch his own breath. “Yeah, actually,” he says, nodding. “I’m not sure I want to go any further.”

“It’s okay. Me too,” Junhui says, sliding off of Wonwoo’s lap (to Wonwoo’s slight disappointment despite things). He leans forward to kiss Wonwoo on the cheek and then on the mouth again.

Wonwoo exhales sharp against Junhui’s lips. Breathes in the familiar smell of the body wash he uses, the clean scent of Junhui’s shirt along with the pile of his clothes beside them smelling like the detergent that they got for the 2-in-1 deals and that Wonwoo also grew up using so it reminds him of home. It reminds him of home, and Junhui almost feels like another for Wonwoo to come back to.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was in the middle of finishing up this chapter when i saw on twitter the pics/vids of kyungwon and minkyung and i was happy but sad all the same because pristin girlies :( and the tiny parallels in my writing made me go oh
> 
> chapter title taken from Almost Touching by skirts.
> 
> if you've read until here, ty so much for sticking it out this long! comments are appreciated and you can talk to me elsewhere too! i'm on twitter + curiouscat @fractalkiss


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